DUKEDOM OF GLOUCESTER

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 May 1928, Page 7

DUKEDOM OF GLOUCESTER

ANCIENT TITLE REVIVED.

LONDON, April 15

The following announcement appeared in the “London Gazette’’ with regard to Prince Henry, the King’s third son, who celebrated his 28th. birthday on Saturday: — Whitehall, March 30, 1928.

The King has been pleased to direct Letters Patent to be passed under the Great Seal of the Realm granting unto his Majesty’s son, his Royal Highness Prince Henry William Frederick Albert, K.G., G.C.V.0., Captain; 10th. Royal Hussars, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, the dignities of Baron Culloden, Earl of Ulster, and Duke of Gloucester.

Although the brother of the future King Harold 11. was Earl in Gloucester and other shires and witnessed in 1043 as Swegen Dux, the appearance of Gloucester as a Peerage dignity is generally reckoned from 1122, when King Henry Beauclerc created his natural son, Robert of Caen, Earl of Gloucester (says “The Times”). It was one of the great titles of English history in the Middle Ages, and King Edward I. took special measures, when his daughter Joan of Acre married the 6th. Earl Gilbert de Clare in 1290, to bring it more under Royal control. It was in virtue of these that the Earldom came into the King’s hand on the death of the Princess’s son at the battle of Bannockburn in June, 1314. The title was regranted to the late Earl’s brother-in-law in 1337, and again became extinct in 1347. As a Dukedom it was granted in 1385 by King Richard 11. to his uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham, who after,wards played so prominent a part in the stormy politics of the day and was murdered and afterwards subjected to forfeiture, after being arrested by the King in 1397. After a delay of little more than a week Gloucester was granted as an Earldom to Thomas, Lord do Despenser, who was of the blood of the de Clares and of Joan of Acre, but he was beheaded by KingHenry IV. in 1400 and atttainted in 1401.

The title was revived as a Dukedom for the fourth son of that King in 1414, the famous Duke Humphrey, Patron of Learning, and Regent of England. Like the first Duke, the second died while under arrest, in 1447, after his second Duchess had been found guilty of practising witchcraft against the King’s life, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. The third Duke of Gloucester, who was given the title in 1461, was the famous Richard Crookback, who was killed at the battle of Bosworth as King Richard 111., the last Sovereign of the male line of King Henry Fitz Empress. A LONG INTERVAL. The Tudors made no use of the Hile which their adherents had surrounded with so sinister a reputation, and it did not reappear in the Peerage until King Charles 11.. made his brother Prince Henry Duke of Gloucester by patent during his exile in 1659, thus confirming the title which had been generally used by him for several years. Duke Henry died of smallpox a few months after his brother’s Restoration in 1660. His little grandnephew, Prince William, was generally known as Duke of Gloucester, but had not been formally so created when he died at the age of 11 in 1700 and opened the way to the Hanoverian Succession.

King George’s second son Frederick. Prince of Wales, was generally known as Duke of Gloucester from 1714 to 1726, and his third son was created, by King George 111.. Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh in 1764. It was ho who secretly married Sir Edward Walpole's natural daughter, the widowed Countess Wald egrave, and their son, who was born in Rome, married Princess Mary the fourth daughter of King George 111., who survived him by 23 years, dying in 1857. On his marriage in 1816. the Duke who was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge., was given the rank of Royal Highness, which, as being only the great-grand-

son of a king, he had not previously enjoyed. Since his death in 1834, the title of Gloucester has been out of the Peerage until to-day. The earldom of Ulster came into the Royal family by the marriage, at the age of 4, of Lionel of Antwerp, after waikls Dulqe of Clarence, with the heiress of the third de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, in 1342. It passed away with his daughter to the House of Mortimer, and returned, with the claim to flic Crown, to the House of York, but it has never been used as a principal title by any Prince, although the

Duke, of York, of Albany, and Bishop of Osnabrock was Earl of Ulster from .1784 to 1827, ami the Duke of Edinburgh was Earl of Ulster from 1866 to 1900. The Barony of Culloden, first created >n 1801 in favour of the Duke of Cimbridge to commemorate the bat"t> which in its day was regarded as a crowning mercy by the victors, and ended the last Civil War in this island, became extinct in 1904. The imw grantee of the title is the' greatgrandson, through his mother’s mother of its first holder.