Royal Dukedoms in The United Kingdom - Royal Status of Dukedoms

Royal Status of Dukedoms

In the United Kingdom, there is nothing about a particular dukedom that makes it "royal". Rather, these peerages are called Royal Dukedoms because they are held by a member of the royal family who is entitled to the style Royal Highness. Although the term Royal Duke therefore has no official meaning per se, the category "Duke of the Blood Royal" was acknowledged as a rank conferring special precedence at court in the unrevoked 20th clause of the Lord Chamberlain's order of 1520. This decree accorded precedence to any peer related by blood to the Sovereign above all others of the same degree within the peerage. The order did not apply within Parliament, nor did it grant precedence above the Archbishop of Canterbury or other Great Officers of State such as is now enjoyed by royal dukes. But it placed junior Dukes of the Blood Royal above the most senior non-royal duke, junior Earls of the Blood Royal above the most senior non-royal earl, etc. It did not matter how distantly related to the monarch the peers might be (presumably they ranked among each other in order of succession to the Crown). Although legally "time does not run against the King", so that the 1520 order is theoretically still in effect, in fact the "Blood Royal" clause seems to have fallen into desuetude in 1917 when George V. limited the style of Royal Highness to children and male-line grandchildren of the Sovereign. Thus peers of the Blood Royal who are not grandchildren of a Sovereign no longer enjoy precedence above other peers.

Under the 20 November 1917, Letters Patent of King George V, the titular dignity of Prince or Princess and the style Royal Highness are restricted to the legitimate children of a Sovereign, the children of a Sovereign's sons, and the eldest living son of the eldest son of a Prince of Wales. For example, when the current Duke of Gloucester and Duke of Kent are succeeded by their eldest sons, the Earl of Ulster and the Earl of St. Andrews, respectively, those peerages (or rather, the 1928 and 1934 creations of them) will cease to be royal dukedoms, instead the title holders will become ordinary Dukes. The third dukes of Gloucester and Kent will each be styled "His Grace" because as great-grandsons of George V, they are not Princes and are not styled HRH. Similarly, upon the death of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught (1850–1942) (the third son of Queen Victoria), his only male-line grandson, Alastair Arthur Windsor, Earl of MacDuff (1914–43), briefly succeeded to his peerages and was styled "His Grace". Before the 1917 changes, his style and title was His Highness Prince Alastair of Connaught.