succession Tag - Line of Succession Blog

Seventy Years of Change

Posted on February 7, 2022 | by Dave Cross | 7 Comments

Her Majesty has, of course, seen changes in many areas of society in the seventy years of her reign. But here, we’re most interested in the line of succession. So we thought it would be interesting to look at the line of succession on the day that she took the throne and see what had happened to the people who were at the top of the line of succession on that day. It’s a very different list to today’s.

The Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall
We start with the one person who is in exactly the same place as he was seventy years ago. Prince Charles was three years old and hadn’t yet been made Prince of Wales.
The Princess Anne
Princess Anne has fallen a long way in seventy years. The birth of younger brothers (back in the days when sex mattered in the line of succession) and those brothers having families of their own mean that she is now down at number 17.
Princess Margaret
We’ve run out of the Queen’s descendants after only two places (today, they fill the top 24 places in the line) so we move to her sister. Princess Margaret had fallen to 11th place before her death in 2002.
Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
We’ve now run out of descendants of George VI, so we need to look at his brothers. This is the father of the current duke. He fell to 8th place before dying in 1974.
Prince William of Gloucester
The Duke of Gloucester’s eldest son had fallen to position 9 before sadly dying before his father in 1972.
Prince Richard of Gloucester
As his eldest son predeceased their father, it was Prince Richard who became Duke of Gloucester when the first duke died in 1974. He is currently in 30th place.
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent
The first Duke of Kent had died ten years earlier, so it was his son, Prince Edward, who held the title, at the age of 16, who was duke in 1952, He fell out of the top 30 in 2012.
Prince Michael of Kent
Prince Michael had fallen to 16th place before his marriage to a Catholic, in 1978, excluded him from the line of succession. He was reinstated in 2015 (because the Succession to the Crown Act meant that marriage to a Catholic was no longer a reason for exclusion) but he reappeared outside of the top 30.
Princess Alexandra of Kent
Princess Alexandra had dropped down the list pretty consistently throughout her life. From 1999 she popped in and out of the top 30 a few times. but she left it for the last time in 2003.
Princess Mary, Princess Royal
The youngest child and only daughter of George V, Princess Mary had called to 17th in line before she died in 1965.
George Lascelles, The 7th Earl of Harewood
Fell out of the top 30 in 1994 before dying in 2011.
David Lascelles, Viscount Lascelles
Fell out of the top 30 in 1993.
Gerald Lascelles
Fell out of the top 30 in 1982 and died in 1998.
Princess Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Fife
Fell to 17th before dying in 1959
James Carnegie, 3rd Duke of Fife
Fell out of the top 30 in 1981 and died in 2015
Olaf V, King of Norway
A bit of a leap as we find the royal family of Norway surprisingly close to the top of the list. King Olaf was a grandson of Edward VII (through Edward’s daughter Maud). He kell out of the top 30 in 1979 and died in 1991.
Prince Harald of Norway
Prince Harald became king of Norway in 1991. He fell out of the top 30 of the British line of succession in 1977.
Princess Ragnhild of Norway
Princess Ragnhild fell out of the top 30 in 1973 and died in 2012.
Princess Astrid of Norway
Princess Astrid fell out of the top 30 in 1964.
Carol II of Romania
The next-closest royal family to ours is the Romanians. Carol II was a great-grandson of Victoria. The death of George VI moved him up a place from 21 to 20 and he remained there until his death the following year. Carol hadn’t actually been King of Romania since he was forced to abdicate in 1940.
Carol Lambrino
The question of Carol Lambino’s legitimacy is a question of some dispute – so he may not have been on the line of succession at all. But, if he was, he fell out of the top 30 in 1963 and died in 2006.
Paul-Philippe Hohenzollern
As son of the possibly-illegitimate Carol Lambino, Paul-Phillippe’s place of the line of succession is also in question. But, anyway, he fell out of the top 30 in 1962.
Prince Nicholas of Romania
Prince Nicholas fell out of the top 30 in 1961 and died in 1978.
Elisabeth of Romania
Fell to number 27 before dying in 1956.
Maria of Yugoslavia
Fell to position 30 before dying in 1961.
Peter II of Yugoslavia
Peter was no longer King of Yugoslavia, having been deposed in 1945. He fell out of the top 30 in 1961 and died in 1970.
Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia
Fell out of the top 30 in 1960 and died in 2000.
Prince Andrew of Yugoslavia
Fell out of the top 30 in 1959 and died in 1990.
Princess Ileana of Romania
Fell out of the top 30 in 1954 and died in 1991.
Archduke Stefan of Austria
Fell out of the top 30 in 1953 and died in 1998.

I think that’s an interesting list for a few reasons:

The fact that we’ve gone from two of the Queen’s descendants to twenty-four of them on the list (but even that’s not as big a difference as happened during Victoria’s reign).
Only ten of the people on the list are still living.
There’s a large number of foreign royalty on the list – basically, the second half of the list is taken up by members of the royal families of Norway, Romania and Yugoslavia. This is obviously because of the way that royal families inter-married up until early in the 20th century. We see far less of that now.

So what do you think? Was the 1952 list a surprise to you? Did you expect it to be as different as it is from the current list?

Different Lines

Posted on January 22, 2020 | by Dave Cross | 9 Comments

If you’ve watched the video where I talk about this site, you’ll know that one of the main reasons why I started getting interested in the royal family was that there were so many people asking such bad questions about it over on Quora. Here are some of the examples I use in the talk:

Who will succeed the Queen of England? (England hasn’t had a Queen since 1707)
Why does Britain always have a queen, not a king? (Genetics, mostly)
Who would be king if Prince Charles dies before Queen Elizabeth II? (That’s a trick question, isn’t it? If Prince Charles dies, we would still have the same queen)
What must Prince Charles actually feel about his mother pulling him from the line of succession and designating his son as heir to the throne? (Umm… what? Perhaps get your news from a more trustworthy source)
Did the Queen assassinate Diana, Princess of Wales? (No)

These all, obviously, stem from people getting their news from increasingly uninformed sources. And would it be discourteous of me to suggest that the width of the Atlantic Ocean seems to be a factor in the amount of fact-checking that some journalists carry out?

But there are also the questions that simply don’t understand how the line of succession. Sometimes, people seem to see the British royal family as something out of Game of Thrones and they forget that a constitutional monarchy is rather different from what you would find in Westeros. The word “constitutional” is there for a very good reason. Questions in this category look like this:

Can the Queen skip a generation and hand the crown to Prince William?
If Prince Charles and Prince William died, would Prince Harry be next in line?
If Prince Charles dies before the Queen, why wouldn’t Prince Andrew be King?

People who ask questions like this don’t understand the most fundamental aspect of the line of succession. The order of the names on the list is fixed. That’s important, so let me repeat it in bold – The order of the names on the list is fixed.

To explain what I mean by that, let’s look at an example. Here is the current top of the list:

Prince Charles
Prince William
Prince George
Princess Charlotte
Prince Louis
Prince Harry
Archie Mountbatten-Windsor
Prince Andrew
Princess Beatrice
Princess Eugenie

The list can be changed in various ways. People are added to the list as they are born. A new baby is inserted after its parent (and after any older siblings) and everyone below that insertion moves down a place. People are removed from the list when they die and everyone below that removal moves up a place. When the sovereign dies, whoever is at the top of the list pops off and becomes the new sovereign (and everyone in the list moves up a place).

There are a few more obscure things that could happen. Someone could convert to Catholicism and be removed from the list. In that case, they are treated (as far as the line of succession is concerned, at least) as though they have died. They are removed from the list and everyone below them moves up a place.

It’s important to note that when someone dies and is removed from the list, it is only that one person who is removed. Any descendants of the deceased remain on the list just moved up a place because of the death above them in the list.

All of this leads to the inviolable rule that I mentioned above. The order of the names on the list is fixed. Once you are on the list, you can never move above or below anyone else on the list. The line of succession is strictly a “no overtaking” lane. With that in mind, we can now answer the three questions above.

Can the Queen skip a generation and hand the crown to Prince William? (No, the Queen can’t change the line of succession at all. It is written in law. I suppose she could ask the governments of all sixteen Commonwealth realms to remove Charles from the list – but that seems very unlikely.)
If Prince Charles and Prince William died, would Prince Harry be next in line? (No, after Prince William, the next person in line is Prince George. He would become king and a regent would be appointed until he became an adult.)
If Prince Charles dies before the Queen, why wouldn’t Prince Andrew be King? (Because Prince Charles currently has two sons and four grandchildren – and all of those people do not get removed from the list if Prince Charles dies.)

I need to make a small confession. The order of the list isn’t quite as fixed as I said. I can think of one instance where two people have swapped places on the list. It’s because of the Succession to the Crown Act (2013). This was the Act of Parliament that did away with male-preference primogeniture for the line of succession. It means that men no longer take precedence over their older sisters. But things were in flux for a while. Let me explain.

Lady Davina Windsor is the eldest daughter of the Duke of Gloucester. In 2004, she married Gary Lewis and they had two children. Their daughter, Senna, was born in 2010 and their son, Tāne, followed in 2012. When Senna was born, she was number 24 on the list but by the time Tāne was born, she had dropped to number 26 and (because the Succession to the Crown Act hadn’t been passed at the time) Tāne went in at number 26 when he was born, pushing Senna down to number 27. The Act was passed in 2013, came into effect on 26 March 2015 but (crucially) affected boys born after 28 October 2011.

So on 25 March 2015, Tāne was at position 28 and Senna was at 29. But on the following day, when the Act came into force, they swapped places and Senna overtook her brother and moved to position 28. Please don’t try to check these facts on the site. I have to confess that, currently, our site isn’t clever enough to accurately represent the pre-Act state of affairs.

But with that one relatively obscure exception, the order of the line of succession is fixed. This means that it becomes easy to play “what if?” and see what would happen if various people on the list met unfortunate and premature ends. Simply write down the existing line of succession in order and cross off the names of any people you want to kill off in your scenario. Any people left over will already be in the correct order for your imaginary line of succession.

Have fun with it. Try removing various people from the list and see what interesting alternatives you come up with. Let us know if you find anything particularly fascinating or tragic.

p.s. I mentioned in passing that if Prince George became king before becoming an adult, then a regent would be appointed. Current rules say that would be the first adult on the line of succession who is resident in the UK. Until very recently, that would have been Prince Harry. I’m not sure how recent events might affect that.

The Act of Settlement

Posted on January 27, 2019 | by Dave Cross | 4 Comments

As I write, this site contains data going back to the start of the nineteenth century but our aim is to get back another hundred years – to 1701 when the Act of Settlement was passed.

Why choose that year? Well, it’s the last time in British history that there was a major change in the way the line of succession worked. In this article I’ll explain what happened (and why). But before we need to set the scene by going back in time another 170 years to 1534 when Henry VIII broke from the Roman Catholic Church and created the Church of England.

Protestants vs Catholics

Everyone, surely, knows the story of how the Pope refused to give Henry VIII a divorce (strictly speaking, an annulment) from Catherine of Aragon, so he split from Rome, divorced Catherine and married Anne Boleyn. This didn’t really work out all that well for Henry but it was worse for the country. Over the following 150 years we pretty much alternated between Protestant and Catholic monarchs and when one faith controlled the throne it usually went pretty badly for followers of the other faith.

This all came to a head in 1688 when parliament decided that they really weren’t happy with the current king – James II (James VII in Scotland) who was a Catholic. James was removed from power and ran away to the continent. He was replaced on the throne by his daughter, Mary, and her husband (who was also her cousin) William of Orange.

The Bill of Rights

In 1689, parliament passed the Bill of Rights. The main reason for the bill was to establish parliament’s right to determine who was Britain’s monarch, but it also contained a few bits of housekeeping about how the line of succession would work in the future. For our story, the most important provisions of the bill were:

Catholics were barred from the throne.
The line of succession was limited to a) descendants of William and Mary, b) descendants of William and any future wife, c) Mary’s sister Anne and d) Anne’s descendants.

And, yes, that sister is the Queen Anne who current Oscar favourite, The Favourite, is about.

A Lack of Heirs

Only a few years later, it became apparent that the line of succession didn’t have enough heirs. Mary had died, childless, in 1694 and William had shown no interest in marrying again. Anne had given birth to many children, but none of them had lived past childhood. In July 1700 her son, Prince William, died just after his eleventh birthday. Anne was now 35 and seemed unlikely to have more children.

It was clear that something needed to be done. Parliament set out to find more heirs. They started by looking at other descendants of James II/VII. He had plenty of descendants, but the problem was that most of them were Catholic. Eventually, they had to go back three more generations and look for descendants of James I/VI. Again, a lot of the options were Catholic and it’s estimated that over fifty Catholics were skipped over before they found a Protestant heir in Sophia of Hanover.

Sophia was the twelfth child of Elizabeth Stuart, the oldest daughter of James I/VI. But she was his senior surviving Protestant heir (her mother had died in 1662). She had been born in The Hague in 1630 and in 1658 she married Ernest Augustus of Brunswick-Lüneburg and in 1692 he had become Elector of Hanover. Her first son, George, was born in 1660.

The Act of Settlement

Having found their heir, parliament passed the Act of Settlement which “settled” the crown on Sophia and her descendants. At the time the Act was passed, William III was still on the throne and the line of succession looked like this:

Princess Anne
Electress Sophia
- Prince George
  - Prince George
  - Princess Sophia
- Prince Maximilian
- Prince Christian
- Prince Ernest
- Princess Sophia
  - Prince Frederick

The Act also reiterated the removal of all Catholics from the line of succession. Over 200 years later, this is still the most important law controlling the British line of succession.

The House of Hanover

It took a few years for the Act of Succession to have any real effect. William died in 1702 and was succeeded by Anne (as he would have been under the Bill of Rights). In 1707, the Acts of Union were passed making England and Scotland a single country called Great Britain, so Queen Anne was the last monarch of England and the first monarch of Great Britain.

Anne died in August 1714. Sophia had died seven weeks earlier, so it was her son, George, who became the first monarch of the House of Hanover, as George I. In 1727, he died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George II. And over the following three hundred years the British crown has passed peacefully from parent to child (or, occasionally, parent to grandchild or sibling to sibling).

In 1701, the line of succession contained ten names. It’s estimated that currently there are around 7,000 names on the list.

Line of Descendants

Posted on April 23, 2018 | by Dave Cross | 2 Comments

The birth of the new Prince of Cambridge today means that the first eighteen slots in the Line of Succession are now taken up by descendants of the Queen. That number will increase to nineteen when Zara Tindall’s baby is born later this year and I expect that either Prince Harry and Meghan Markle or Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank will round that out to twenty before too long. That’s an increase from just two (Prince Charles and Princess Anne) when the Queen first came to the throne.

Eighteen descendants seem like quite a dynasty, but here at Succession Towers, we started to wonder what was the highest number of descendants in the line of succession at any time was, so we fired up the supercomputer and did a few calculations. We haven’t checked every possible answer, but we’re confident that we have a strong contender for the record.

When Queen Victoria took the throne in 1837, she had no descendants in the line of succession (that shouldn’t be a surprise – she was, after all, only just eighteen and still unmarried). But by the time she died in 1901, she had an astonishing seventy-four descendants in the line of succession. Of course, family life was rather different back then. Victoria had nine children (compared to the current Queen’s four) and most of them had a large number of offspring.

Here’s the list. Notice that three of Victoria’s children (Princess Alice, Prince Alfred, and Prince Leopold) died before her. They are marked with an X in the following list. You’ll also find a few interesting people in the list, including the next four British kings.

Prince Albert, The Prince of Wales (King Edward VII)
Age 59 (born 9 November 1841),
Son
1. Prince George, The Duke of York (King George V)
  Age 35 (born 3 June 1865),
  Grandson
  1. Prince Edward of York (King Edward VIII)
    Age 6 (born 23 June 1894),
    Great grandson
  2. Prince Albert of York (King George VI)
    Age 5 (born 14 December 1895),
    Great grandson
  3. Prince Henry of York (The Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester)
    Age 0 (born 31 March 1900),
    Great grandson
  4. Princess Mary of York (The Princess Mary, Princess Royal)
    Age 3
    Great granddaughter
2. Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife (Louise, Princess Royal)
  Age 33 (born 20 February 1867),
  Granddaughter
  1. Lady Alexandra Duff (Princess Arthur of Connaught, Duchess of Fife)
    Age 9 (born 17 May 1891),
    Great granddaughter
  2. Lady Maud Duff (Princess Maud, Countess of Southesk)
    Age 7 (born 3 April 1893),
    Great granddaughter
3. Princess Victoria
  Age 32 (born 6 July 1868),
  Granddaughter
4. Princess Charles of Denmark (Maud, Queen of Norway)
  Age 31 (born 26 November 1869),
  Granddaughter
Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(born 6 August 1844, died 30 July 1900),
Son
1. Marie of Romania
  Age 25 (born 29 October 1875),
  Granddaughter
  1. Carol II of Romania
    Age 7 (born 15 October 1893),
    Great grandson
  2. Elisabeth of Romania
    Age 6 (born 12 October 1894),
    Great granddaughter
  3. Maria of Yugoslavia
    Age 1 (born 6 January 1900),
    Great granddaughter
2. Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
  Age 24 (born 25 November 1876),
  Granddaughter
3. Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
  Age 22 (born 1 September 1878),
  Granddaughter
  1. Prince Gottfried, 8th Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
    Age 3 (born 24 May 1897),
    Great grandson
  2. Princess Marie Melita of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
    Age 2 (born 18 January 1899),
    Great granddaughter
4. Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
  Age 16 (born 20 April 1884),
  Granddaughter
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
Age 50 (born 1 May 1850),
Son
1. Prince Arthur of Connaught
  Age 18 (born 13 January 1883),
  Grandson
2. Princess Margaret of Connaught
  Age 19 (born 15 January 1882),
  Granddaughter
3. Princess Patricia of Connaught
  Age 14 (born 17 March 1886),
  Granddaughter
Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany
Age 24 (born 7 April 1853, died 28 March 1884),
Son
1. Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
  Age 16 (born 19 July 1884),
  Grandson
2. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone
  Age 17 (born 25 February 1883),
  Granddaughter
Victoria, Princess Royal
Age 60 (born 21 November 1840),
Daughter
1. Kaiser Wilhelm II
  Age 41 (born 27 January 1859),
  Grandson
  1. Crown Prince Wilhelm
    Age 18 (born 6 May 1882),
    Great grandson
  2. Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia
    Age 17 (born 7 July 1883),
    Great grandson
  3. Prince Adalbert of Prussia
    Age 16 (born 14 July 1884),
    Great grandson
  4. Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia
    Age 13 (born 29 January 1887),
    Great grandson
  5. Prince Oskar of Prussia
    Age 12 (born 27 July 1888),
    Great grandson
  6. Prince Joachim of Prussia
    Age 10 (born 17 December 1890),
    Great grandson
  7. Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia
    Age 8 (born 13 September 1892),
    Great granddaughter
2. Prince Henry of Prussia
  Age 38 (born 14 August 1862),
  Grandson
  1. Prince Waldemar of Prussia
    Age 11 (born 20 March 1889),
    Great grandson
  2. Prince Sigismund of Prussia
    Age 4 (born 27 November 1896),
    Great grandson
  3. Prince Henry of Prussia
    Age 1 (born 9 January 1900),
    Great grandson
3. Princess Charlotte of Prussia
  Age 40 (born 24 July 1860),
  Granddaughter
  1. Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen
    Age 21 (born 12 May 1879),
    Great granddaughter
4. Princess Viktoria of Prussia
  Age 34 (born 12 April 1866),
  Granddaughter
5. Sophia of Prussia
  Age 30 (born 14 June 1870),
  Granddaughter
  1. George II of Greece
    Age 10 (born 19 July 1890),
    Great grandson
  2. Alexander of Greece
    Age 7 (born 1 August 1893),
    Great grandson
  3. Helen of Greece and Denmark
    Age 4 (born 2 May 1896),
    Great granddaughter
6. Princess Margaret of Prussia
  Age 28 (born 22 April 1872),
  Granddaughter
  1. Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel
    Age 7 (born 24 November 1893),
    Great grandson
  2. Prince Maximilian of Hesse-Kassel
    Age 6 (born 20 October 1894),
    Great grandson
  3. Prince Philipp of Hesse-Kassel
    Age 4 (born 6 November 1896),
    Great grandson
  4. Prince Wolfgang of Hesse-Kassel
    Age 4 (born 6 November 1896),
    Great grandson
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom
(born 25 April 1843, died 14 December 1878),
Daughter
1. Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
  Age 32 (born 25 November 1868),
  Grandson
  1. Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine
    Age 5 (born 11 March 1895),
    Great granddaughter
2. Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
  Age 37 (born 5 April 1863),
  Granddaughter
  1. George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven
    Age 8 (born 6 December 1892),
    Great grandson
  2. Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
    Age 0 (born 25 June 1900),
    Great grandson
  3. Princess Alice of Battenberg
    Age 15 (born 25 February 1885),
    Great granddaughter
  4. Louise Mountbatten
    Age 11 (born 13 July 1889),
    Great granddaughter
3. Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine
  Age 36 (born 1 November 1864),
  Granddaughter
4. Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine
  Age 34 (born 11 July 1866),
  Granddaughter
5. Alexandra Feodorovna
  Age 28 (born 6 June 1872),
  Granddaughter
  1. Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia
    Age 5 (born 15 November 1895),
    Great granddaughter
  2. Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia
    Age 3 (born 10 June 1897),
    Great granddaughter
  3. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia
    Age 1 (born 26 June 1899),
    Great granddaughter
Princess Helena of the United Kingdom
Age 54 (born 25 May 1846),
Daughter
1. Albert, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein
  Age 31 (born 26 February 1869),
  Grandson
2. Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein
  Age 30 (born 3 May 1870),
  Granddaughter
3. Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein
  Age 28 (born 12 August 1872),
  Granddaughter
Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
Age 52 (born 18 March 1848),
Daughter
Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom
Age 43 (born 14 April 1857),
Daughter
1. Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke
  Age 14 (born 23 November 1886),
  Grandson
2. Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg
  Age 13 (born 24 October 1887),
  Granddaughter
3. Lord Leopold Mountbatten
  Age 11 (born 21 May 1889),
  Grandson
4. Prince Maurice of Battenberg
  Age 9 (born 3 October 1891),
  Grandson

The Next Duke of Edinburgh

Posted on April 15, 2018 | by Dave Cross | 4 Comments

At some point in the next ten years, we will have a new Duke of Edinburgh. But who will it be? People seem to be confused on the matter. Let’s try to clear it up.

The confusion seems to stem from an announcement made by Buckingham Palace on the morning of Prince Edward’s wedding to Sophie Rhys-Jones on 19 June 1999. Unlike his brothers, Edward was not given a royal Dukedom on his wedding day, but it was announced that the Queen intended for him to be made the Duke of Edinburgh “in due course”. It’s that “in due course” that confuses people. What does it mean?

Some people think that Edward will be made Duke of Edinburgh immediately after his father dies. But that’s very unlikely to happen as it goes against everything we know about how titles are inherited. The Duke of Edinburgh is a perfectly normal peerage. It will follow the normal rules of inheritance. That is to say, when the current Duke dies, his title will be inherited by his eldest son – who is, of course, Prince Charles.

Of course, Charles already has plenty of titles. He’s the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cornwall, the Duke of Rothesay and a few more besides. If he inherits his father’s dukedom, that title will just be added to the pile and you’ll never hear it spoken of as many of his other titles are more important.

Sometime later, the Queen will die and Charles will become King. At that point, all of his titles merge with the crown and, effectively, cease to exist (the Dukedoms of Cornwall and Rothesay are special – they are automatically held by the eldest son of the monarch, so they will immediately be passed to Prince William). When that happens, the Dukedom of Edinburgh will be available to be created again (for the fourth time) and bestowed on Prince Edward. This is presumably what the Queen was hinting at in her announcement on Edward’s wedding day.

So if Prince Philip dies before the Queen, the next Duke of Edinburgh will be Prince Charles and only after the Queen has also died can he bestow it on his youngest brother. Of course, it might not happen like that. It’s possible that the Queen could die before Prince Philip. In that case, Prince Charles becomes King and Philip retains his dukedom. Then when Philip eventually dies, Charles inherits the title, but as he’s King the title merges with the crown and is available to be created again. It doesn’t matter in what order it happens, but both the Queen and Prince Philip need to die before Prince Edward can become the Duke of Edinburgh.

It might be instructive to quickly run through all the Royal Dukedoms to see what might happen to them over the next few years.

Duke of Cornwall / Duke of Rothsay

As stated above, these are dukedoms with special rules. They are both automatically held by the eldest son of the monarch. When Prince Charles becomes King, they will be passed on to Prince William.

Duke of Edinburgh

As explained above, this will be inherited by Prince Charles and will merge with the crown when he becomes King. At the point, the current Queen has indicated that she would like a new creation of this dukedom to be bestowed on Prince Edward.

Duke of Cambridge

The future of this dukedom depends on the order in which people die. When Prince Charles is King, Prince William will hold on to his dukedom as well as becoming Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay and, presumably, Prince of Wales. As the Cambridge title is less important than any of those, you won’t see it being used. If, as you’d expect in the normal course, Prince Charles dies before Prince William, William will become King and the dukedom will merge with the crown and cease to exist. If, however, Prince William dies without becoming King, the dukedom will be inherited by Prince George.

Duke of York

As dukedoms are only ever inherited by sons, and Prince Andrew only has daughters, it looks like this dukedom will cease to exist on Prince Andrew’s death.

Duke of Gloucester

This far down the line of succession, we are unlikely to be troubled by complication caused by titleholders becoming monarchs. Therefore, we can be certain that Prince Richard will be followed as Duke of Gloucester by his eldest son, Alexander Windsor, Earl of Ulster.

Duke of Kent

Prince Edward (a different one) will be succeeded as Duke of Kent by his son, George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews.

It’s worth noting that, as the great-grandsons of King George V, neither Alexander Windsor nor his second cousin George Windsor is a prince. That is a honour that stops at the grandsons of a monarch.