HRH Princess Louise of Wales, as she was then, married Alexander Duff, 6th Earl of Fife, on Saturday, 27 July 1889. She would later become Princess Royal after her father came to the Throne as HM King Edward VII. Two days after the wedding, Lord Fife was raised to Duke. However, when it became evident that Alexander and Louise would not have a son, the Dukedom was re-created by Letters Patent in 1900 with a special remainder that allowed the dukedom to pass to the daughters of the first Duke, namely Their Highnesses Princess Alexandra and Princess Maud, and those daughters' male-line descendants. HH Princess Alexandra of Fife duly became the 2nd Duchess in 1912 on the death of her father.
The following year, The Duchess of Fife married her cousin, HRH Prince Arthur of Connaught, himself a grandson of HM Queen Victoria, and the couple became known as TRH Prince and Princess Arthur of Connaught. They became prominent within the Royal Family on the death of HM King Edward VII as the new King George V's children were still young. However, having said that, I can find no evidence of their marital Coat of Arms. This is a shame, not only given their prominence but as I am sure the achievement would be quite a grand affair.
And that, then, seems to have set a pattern within the heraldry of this branch of the extended British Royal Family.
Prince and Princess Arthur had one son, the fated Alastair who was reported on in a previous blog. He lost his royal title in 1917 as a consequence of the re-titling of the British Royal Family during the First World War and took on his mother's secondary title as her heir, becoming known as the Earl of Macduff. Prince Arthur passed away before his own father, HRH The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, in 1938. Therefore, when the old Duke died in 1942 Alastair inherited the paternal title. However, Alastair himself passed away the following year without an heir and so the Dukedom of Connaught and Strathearn became extinct.
When HRH Princess Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Fife died in 1959 the provisions of the second grant of the Dukedom of Fife from 1900 meant that the title passed through her sister, HH Princess Maud, to her nephew James George Alexander Bannerman Carnegie. Maud had a) died in 1945 and b) herself married a peer, namely Charles Carnegie, 11th Earl of Southesk. James therefore became the 3rd Duke of Fife. However, his father lived until he was 98 and so James didn't become the 12th Earl of Southesk as well until 1992. Even considering the titles appertaining to the old title of Earl of Fife which lapsed at the death of the first Duke, James Carnegie could list the following:
- 3rd Duke of Fife (Peerage of the United Kingdom)
- 12th Earl of Southesk (Peerage of Scotland)
- 3rd Earl of Macduff (Peerage of the United Kingdom)
- 12th Lord Carnegie of Kinnaird (Peerage of Scotland)
- 12th Lord Carnegie of Kinnaird and Leuchars (Peerage of Scotland)
- 4th Baron Balinhard of Farnell in the County of Forfar (Peerage of the United Kingdom)
- 9th Carnegie Baronet (Baronetage of Nova Scotia)
His Grace the 3rd Duke of Fife passed away in 2015 and the titles passed on to his son, David. Towards the end of last year the Duke's Arms were rematriculated or 're-registered' by Lyon Court in Scotland in a far simpler version to show the 2 main titles of Fife (the red Lion) and Southesk (the blue Eagle and gold Cup) as shown at the top of the blog. Below is Lyon Court's version painted by Maggie Spalding.
To end this blog, please be aware that the Ducal Coronet in Maggie Spalding's rendering has already been questioned on social media and is purely artistic license rather than a new Coronet!