Royal Dukedom: Addendum Part II

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1st Duke of Monmouth, Charles Edward of Albany, Duke of Albany, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Ernst August of Hanover, James Scott, King James II-VII of England, Royal Dukedom, Scotland and Ireland, Titles Deprivation Act of 1917

Here are some extinct Royal Dukedoms that could be used once again. Strathearn has never been used as a singular Dukedom as it is often coupled with another Dukedom.

Duke of Albemarle
Duke of Clarence
Duke of Avondale
Duke of Connaught
Duke of Strathearn
Duke of Hereford
Duke of Kendal
Duke of Kintyre
Duke of Ross
Duke of Monmouth
Duke of Windsor

Connaught was an Irish Peerage now part of the Republic of Ireland so is not available for recreation.

The title Duke of Windsor is so associated with Edward VIII I have a difficult time thinking it will ever be recreated.

Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
Duke of Albany

There are two Dukedoms (three if Teviotdale is considered a separate Dukedom) have been suspended.

Prince Ernst August, Crown Prince of Hanover, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale

In 1799 the double dukedom of Cumberland and Teviotdale, in the Peerage of Great Britain, was bestowed on Ernest Augustus (later King of Hanover), fifth son of King George III of the United Kingdom. In 1837 Ernest became king of Hanover, and on his death in 1851 the title descended with the kingdom to his son King Georg V, and on Georg’s death in 1878 to his grandson Prince Ernst August, Crown Prince of Hanover.

In 1866 Hanover was annexed by Prussia, but King Georg Vdied without renouncing his rights. His son Ernst August while maintaining his claim to the kingdom of Hanover, was generally known by his title of Duke of Cumberland in Britain.

The title was suspended for Ernst August’s pro-German activities during World War I under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917, as it was for his son. Under the Act, the lineal male heirs of the 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale have the right to petition the British Crown for the restoration of his peerages. To date, none has done so.

The present heir is Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born February 26, 1954), great grandson of the 3rd Duke and current head of the House of Hanover. He is the senior male-line descendant of George III of the United Kingdom.

The title of “Albany” alone was granted for the fifth time, this time in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, in 1881 to Prince Leopold, the fourth son of Queen Victoria. Prince Leopold’s son, Prince Charles Edward (who had succeeded as reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1900), was deprived of the peerage in 1917 for bearing arms against the United Kingdom in World War I.

Carl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Duke of Albany

His grandson, Ernst Leopold (1935–1996), only son of Charles Edward’s eldest son Johann Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1906–1972), sometimes used the title “Duke of Albany”, although the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 stipulates that any successor of a suspended peer shall be restored to the peerage only by direction of the sovereign, the successor’s petition for restoration having been submitted for and obtained a satisfactory review of the appropriate Privy Council committee.

Because of it’s negative association with James Scott, 1st Dukedom of Monmouth I don’t believe this Dukedom will be recreated.

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, (April 9, 1649 – July 15, 1685) was a Dutch-born English nobleman and military officer. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of King Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland with his mistress Lucy Walter.

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth

The Duke of Monmouth served in the Second Anglo-Dutch War and commanded English troops taking part in the Third Anglo-Dutch War before commanding the Anglo-Dutch brigade fighting in the Franco-Dutch War.

The Duke of Monmouth believed his father, King Charles II and his mother Lucy Walter were legally married making him the lawful King of England, Scotland and Ireland.

He led the unsuccessful Monmouth Rebellion in 1685, an attempt to depose his uncle King James II-VII. After one of his officers declared Monmouth the legitimate king in the town of Taunton in Somerset, Monmouth attempted to capitalise on his Protestantism and his position as the son of Charles II, in opposition to James, who had become a Roman Catholic. The rebellion failed, and Monmouth was beheaded for treason on July 15, 1685 despite asking his uncle the King to spare his life.

April 7, 1853: Birth of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany

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Charles Edward of Albany, Duke of Albany, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmount, Hemophilia, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Georg Victor of Waldeck and Pyrmount, Prince Leopold of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Wilhelm II of Germany

Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, (Leopold George Duncan Albert; April 7, 1853 – March 28, 1884) Leopold was later created

Leopold was born at Buckingham Palace, London, the eighth child and youngest son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. During labour, Queen Victoria chose to use chloroform and thereby encouraged the use of anesthesia in childbirth, recently developed by Professor James Young Simpson. The chloroform was administered by John Snow.

As a son of the British sovereign, the newborn was styled His Royal Highness The Prince Leopold at birth. His parents named him Leopold after their common uncle, King Leopold I of Belgium.

Leopold inherited the disease haemophilia from his mother, Queen Victoria, and was a delicate child. There was speculation during his life that Leopold also suffered mildly from epilepsy, like his grand-nephew Prince John, son of George V and Mary of Teck.

In 1872, Prince Leopold entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied a variety of subjects and became president of the Oxford University Chess Club. On coming of age in 1874, he was made a privy councillor and granted an annuity of £15,000. He left the university in 1876 with an honorary doctorate in civil law (DCL), and then travelled in Europe. In 1880, he toured Canada and the United States with his sister, Princess Louise, whose husband John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, was Governor General of Canada. Leopold was a prominent patron of chess, and the London 1883 chess tournament was held under his patronage.

On May 24, 1881, his mother Queen Victoria created Leopold Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, and Baron Arklow.

Prince Leopold, stifled by the desire of Queen Victoria to keep him at home, saw marriage as his only hope of independence. Due to his haemophilia, he had difficulty finding a wife. He was acquainted with Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford for whom Lewis Carroll wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and was godfather of Alice’s second son, who was named after him.

It has been suggested that he considered marrying her, during the four years he spent at Christ Church, but the evidence for this is sparse. Others suggest that he preferred her sister Edith (for whom he later served as pall-bearer on 30 June 1876).

Princess Frederica of Hanover

Leopold also considered his second cousin Princess Frederica of Hanover as a bride; they instead became lifelong friends and confidantes. Other royal and aristocratic women he pursued included heiress Daisy Maynard, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse-Cassel,

Another potential royal bride that was considered was Princess Caroline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein. Caroline Mathilde’s elder sister, Augusta Viktoria was German Empress and Queen of Prussia as the wife of Leopold’s nephew, Wilhelm II, German Emperor.

Princess Caroline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein

Princess Stéphanie of Belgium and Princess Victoria of Baden were also considered. Leopold was very fond of Mary Baring, daughter of Lord Ashburton, but though she was equally fond of him, at 19, she felt she was too young to marry.

After rejection from these women, Victoria stepped in to bar what she saw as unsuitable possibilities. Insisting that the children of British monarchs should marry into other reigning Protestant families, Victoria suggested a meeting with Princess Helen Frederica, the daughter of Georg Victor, reigning Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont, one of whose daughters had already married King Willem III of the Netherlands.

On April 27, 1882, Leopold and Helen were married at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, and his income was raised by parliament to £25,000. They enjoyed a happy, albeit brief marriage. In 1883, Leopold became a father when his wife gave birth to a daughter, Alice. However, he did not live to see the birth of his son, Charles Edward.

The Duke and Duchess of Albany. Prince Leopold and Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmount

Illness and death

Prince Leopold had haemophilia diagnosed in childhood, and in early years had various physicians in permanent attendance, including Arnold Royle and John Wickham Legg.

In February 1884, Leopold went to Cannes on doctor’s orders: joint pain is a common symptom of haemophilia and the winter climate in the United Kingdom was always difficult for him. His wife, pregnant at the time, stayed at home but urged him to go.

On March 27, at his Cannes residence, the ‘Villa Nevada’, he slipped and fell, injuring his knee and hitting his head. He died in the early hours of the next morning, apparently from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was buried in the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor. The court observed official mourning from March 30, 1884 to May 11, 1884.

Having died six years after his older sister Alice, Leopold was the second, but the youngest of Queen Victoria’s children to die, being only 30 years old at the time of his death.

His mother outlived him by seventeen years, by which time she had also outlived a third child, Alfred. Leopold’s passing was lamented by the Scottish “poet and tragedian” William McGonagall in the poem “The Death of Prince Leopold”. Queen Victoria wrote in her journal:

Another awful blow has fallen upon me & all of us today. My beloved Leopold, that bright, clever son, who had so many times recovered from such fearful illness, & from various small accidents, has been taken from us! To lose another dear child, far from me, & one who was so gifted, & such a help to me, is too dreadful!

The haemophilia gene is carried on the X chromosome, and is normally passed through female descent, as in the past few haemophiliac men survived to beget children. Any daughter of a haemophiliac is a carrier of the gene. Leopold’s daughter Alice inherited the haemophilia gene, and passed it to her elder son Rupert.

Leopold’s posthumous son, Prince Charles Edward, succeeded him as 2nd Duke of Albany upon birth four months later. Charles Edward succeeded his uncle Alfred as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1900. Through Charles Edward, Leopold is the great-grandfather of Carl XVI Gustaf, the current King of Sweden.

February 17, 1861: Birth of Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Duchess of Albany

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Charles Edward of Albany, Duke of Albany, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Georg Victor of Waldeck and Pyrmount, Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmount, King George II of Great Britain, Leopold of the United Kingdom, Willem III of the Netherlands

Princess Helen of Waldeck and Pyrmont (later Duchess of Albany; February 17, 1861 – September 1, 1922) was a member of the British royal family by marriage. She was the fifth daughter and child of Georg Victor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and his first wife, Princess Helena of Nassau.

Princess Helena of Nassau was the ninth child of Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau (1792–1839), by his second wife Princess Pauline of Württemberg (1810–1856), daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg. She was the half-sister of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (then Hereditary Prince of Nassau). She was related to the Dutch Royal Family and also, distantly, to the British Royal Family through her father and mother, as both were descendants of King George II of Great Britain.

Helen was born in Arolsen, capital of Waldeck principality, in Germany. She was the sister of Friedrich, last reigning Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont; another sister Marie, was the first wife of Wilhelm II of Württemberg; and another sister was Emma, Queen consort of Willem III of the Netherlands (and mother of Queen Wilhelmina).

Along with Emma and a third sister, Pauline, Helen was considered as a second wife for their distant cousin Willem III of the Netherlands. She later met with another distant cousin Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, youngest son of Queen Victoria, at the suggestion of his mother. The two became engaged in November 1881.

On April 27, 1882, Leopold and Helen married in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. After their wedding, Leopold and Helen resided at Claremont House. The couple had a brief, but happy marriage, ending in the hemophiliac Leopold’s death from a fall in Cannes, France, in March 1884. At the time of Leopold’s death, Helen was pregnant with their second child.

The couple had two children:

Princess Alice of Albany (1883–1981), later Countess of Athlone
Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany (1884–1954), later reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Helen was also involved in several hospital charities and with those dedicated to ending human trafficking. During World War I, she organised much of her charity work along with that of her sister-in-law Princess Beatrice and husband’s niece Princess Marie-Louise to avoid the not-uncommon problem of conflicting (and sometimes misguided) royal war-work projects.

Later life

After Leopold’s death, Helen and her two children, Alice and Charles Edward, continued to reside at Claremont House.

After the death of her nephew, the Prince Arthur of Edinburgh, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1899, Helen’s sixteen-year-old son was selected as the new heir to the German duchy, and was parted from his mother and sister in order to take up residence there. When the First World War broke out 14 years later, Charles Edward found himself fighting in the German Army. As a result, he was stripped of his British titles by an act of Parliament in 1917.

By contrast, her daughter Alice remained in England and by marriage to Prince Alexander of Teck in 1904 became a sister-in-law of Queen Mary, consort of King George V.

Helen died on September 1, 1922 of a heart attack in Hinterriss in Tyrol, Austria, while visiting her beloved son, Charles Edward. Through her son, she is the great-grandmother of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.