SOME DUCAL TITLES.

Otago Witness, 5 December 1900, Page 63

SOME DUCAL TITLES.

The present Duke of Cumberland being blessed with three sons, his title as an English Peer is not likely to die out — as has previously been the case — and then be revived in favour of .some Prince from a succeeding branch of the Royal House^ The Duke of Cumberland A^honi people soonest call to mind is William Augustus, that son of King George II who was styled by his detractors "the Butcher of Culloden." He was his father's favourite, and had been wounded while in his company at the Battle of Dettingen. In 1746 he crushed the Jacobite rebellion, and behaved to disabled and fugitive enemies Avith such rudty — even timing houses where they had taken refuge — that a few days after the final battle a district of 50 miles lay quite desolate. Parliament voted him £25.000 a year, in addition to

his previous income, for this piece of work.' He died in 1765, five years after his father.Henry Frederick, son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, was another holder of the Cumberland title. His chief claim to distinction was ms marriage with a Mrs Hortor, widow of a Derbyshire squire — for which he" was fonbidden by his brother, King George 111, to appear at Court. The Ro3 r al Marriage Act was the consequence of this wedding. This act prohibits British descendants of George II from marrying before the age of 25 without the consent of the reigning Monarch, and also restricts their alliances in other respects. Under Charles I and Charles II a Duke of Cumberland helped considerably in the. making of English history, but he is best known to fame as Prince Rupert. He Mas one of the many children of ' Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, and daughter of our King James I. Rupert was made an English peer by his uncle, Charles, so that he might sit "in the Royalist Parliument at Oxford. He in England during the reign of his** cousin, Charles, and was buried with all due state in Westminster Abbey.

A very able, proud, and bad-tempered, man, Rupert was very poor all his days, for his parents, an impecunious couple, had the swarming family which usually accompanies a scanty household purse. His English relatives had other ditiiculties~to contend with, and could only help these Bohemian Stuarts to a limited degree.

The ducal title of Cambridge is one which comes and goes, and it will have to die for a while with its present venerable holder, who has no royal to inherit it. Later on it might well suit one of the* Teck Princes, the grandsons of Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, sixth son of King George in, foi they are quite as English as our other .Highnesses, and in another reign may come into closer touch with the throne.

There were Stuart Dukes of Cambridge, but their record is a pitiful one. James 11, as Duke of York, seemed to have quite a desperate fancy that one of his sons should bear this title. He had 15 legitimate children, of whom six were boys. The eldest was Charles, Duke of Cambridge, who died in his first yeai of existence. Then came James. Duke of Cambridge, who died in his fourth reai, a month after the decease of a baby brother, Charles, Duke of Kendal. Edgar. Duke of Cambridge, born soon after these little funerals;, died in his fourth "year. These were Anne Hyde's sons, and of her family only two" daughters lived to grow up, Mary and Anne, afterwards Queens of -England.

James's first child .by- Alary of Modena was a boy; and, nothing daunted" by pre-; vious misfortunes, the" father must needs have this infant styled Charles, Duke of Cambridge. ■■ It only lived five, weeks. When the next boy arrived James was King of England j, and -his son ..received the. title of Prince of Wales, and- the year after this birth was also the -.year -of the King's deposition, and the.flight'of the Queen and' baby to France. The eaTiy deaths of -the, f oui little . Dukes of Cambridge, the baby Duke of Kendal. and a half dozens tiny--Princesses were doubtless owing to defective nursing and the insanitary arrangements which then prevailed in palaces as in much humbler homes.

The fine old crusted title of Duke of Gloucester is shelved at present, but may prove serviceable in time to come, when three or four royal brothers grow up and stand in a roAv. It was really immortalised by Richard Crookback, a princely villain of priceless value to the stage, if not to the State ; and it was more worthily worn by poor young Henry, son of Charles I, who assured his condemned father solemnly that -he would be torn in pieces sooner than be made King in the place of his elder brother. This conscientious Duke of Gloucester died when but 20, soon after the Restoration, and as a staunch Protestant, though he had been well pecked and peisecuted by his Romish mother for not joining her church. brother and a nephew of King George 111 were the last two holders of this historic title.

Queen Victoria did not turn to the past when making Peers of her younger sons, but distinguished two of them by novelties which recalled nothing in particular. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke of Con--naugiTc seemed strangers quite when first gazetted ; and the Duke of Albany almost as unfamiliar to folk not svell lip in history. People were better pleased, somehow, with the time-honoured titles bestowed on the Prince of Wales's sons, though it surprised a few that Albert Victor was not Duke of York, instead of Duke of Clarence.