THE DUKE OF KENT

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1934, Page 7

THE DUKE OF KENT

NEW TITLES CONFERRED. ENGLISH, SCOTTISH, IRISH. The London Gazette of October 9 announced: The King has been pleased to direct Letters Patent to be passed under the Great Seal of the Realm granting until His Majesty’s son, his Royal Highness Prince George Edward Alexander Edmund, K.G., G.C.M.G., G.C.VO., and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten the dignities of Baron Downpatrick, Earl of St. Andrews, and Duke of Kent, states the Evening Post’s London correspondent. The last Duke of Kent was Prince George's great-great-grandfather, the father of Queen Victoria. On his death in 1820 Queen Victoria conferred the title as an Earldom on her second son, the Duke of Edinburgh; he died as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1900 and the title became extinct. The title of St. Andrews was used to form part of the Dukedom of Clarence and St. Andrews conferred in 1789 by King George 111. oh his third son, Prince William Henry, who became King William IV. in 1830. Downpatrick makes its first appearance as a peerage title. The question of an alteration in the Prince’s coat of arms now arises. It is stated that Prince George’s great-great-grandfather bore the arms of the Royal House of Great Britain. In the centre—on an “inescutcheon of pretence”—he also had the arms of the House of Hanover, with the omission of the Crown of Charlemagne. The coat was differenced with a label of three points, with a cross of St. George (middle point), the other two points bearing fleur de lys azure. “Prince George at the moment bears the same arms as the King,” states the Daily Telegraph, “differenced with a label, on each of three points of which an anchor is charged. . . . There js little likelihood that Prince George ■will take his great-great-grandfather’s arms. Any alteration in his coat is likely to be in the difference it now bears.” The Times records:—

Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of King William 1., was made Earl of Kent in 1067 and held the county with Palatine powers. Although more of a soldier than a prelate, he was ambitious to become Pope, and so annoyed the King by his preparations for an armed adventure into Italy that in 1082 the King arrested him “as Earl, not as Bishop,” and kept him in prison at Rouen until 1087. King William 11. restored his uncle to his earldom, but he rebelled against his benefactor, was deprived of his earldom, and banished in 1088. After having been held by the great Hubert de Burgh, Justiciar of England, from 1225 to 1243, the Earldom of Kent was next conferred on the youngest son of King Edward 1., Edmund of Woodstock, in 1321 by his half-brother, King Edward 11. He was beheaded at Winchetser in 1330 after an insurrection against his nephew, King Edward 11. His two sons, however, were not allowed to hold the earldom, and it passed to his sister Joan, the celebrated Fair Maid of Kent (mother, by her second marriage with the Black Prince, of King Richard IL), and to her elder son, Thomas de Holland. It remained in his family until Edmund, the ninth earl, was killed in battle in Brittany in 1408. The earldom went to a grandson of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, William Neville, the eighth son of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, in 1461, and was given in 1465 to Edmund Lord Grey of Ruthin, a great-nephew of King Henry TV. and a grandson of that John de Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, who had been beheaded in January, 1400, after having been for a short time Duke of Exeter. The title of Earl of Kent remained with the Greys until 1740, and its last holder was created Marquess of Kent in 1706, and Duke of Kent in 1710. His only son is said to have been choked by an ear of barley, and died in 1723. Princess Marina has chosen her wedding dress at Molyneux’s, in Paris. It is in Lyons silver brocade into which is woven the English Rose. The style of the dress is simple, straight in line with a slender skirt, long train, and' long, wide sleeves. A Court train, from four to five yards long, will depend from the shoulders. This will be lined with plain silver lame. A lace veil, formerly worn by her mother and her sister, will be draped over the train with tulle. Her shoes will be in the same brocade as the dress. The bridesmaids will wear white crepe into which is woven a fine silver thread. They will wear a headdress of flowers, not hats. Princess Marina is choosing all her trousseau at Molyneux’s. The greater part will be made in England.