Serene Highness - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

Queen Victoria elevated all of the princes who married her daughters to Royal Highness (except for Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia, husband of Victoria, Princess Royal, who already possessed the HRH). This included HSH Prince Henry of Battenberg, husband of Princess Beatrice. That couple's children, born Serene Highnesses, were granted the style of Highness by their British grandmother.

Several morganatic branches of reigning German dynasties took up residence in the United Kingdom in the 19th century, where their German princely titles and style of Serene Highness were recognized by the sovereign. Included in this group were Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Princess Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenberg, the dukes and princes of Teck, (Mary of Teck, George V's queen consort, was Her Serene Highness as a princess of Teck), and the Princes of Battenberg (Princess Andrew of Greece, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was "Her Serene Highness" prior to marriage). The Tecks descended from the royal house of Württemberg, and the Battenbergs descended from the Grand Dukes of Hesse and by Rhine.

During World War I, King George V revoked recognition of the style Serene Highness, hitherto used by some relatives of the British Royal Family who possessed German princely titles, but were British subjects. These were the Dukes and Princes of Teck and the Princes of Battenberg, who were compensated with peerages, viz. Marquess of Cambridge and Earl of Athlone for the Tecks, and Marquess of Milford Haven and Marquess of Carisbrooke for the Battenbergs.

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