Edward the new Duke of Edinburgh

[SnottyLottie]

www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/03/10/king-charles-prince-edward-royal-family-title-duke-edinburgh/

In order to honour Edward’s 59th birthday

This is brilliant news. I’m so pleased for him. Absolutely deserved.

A royal Duke outranks a prince. That's why official royal communications nearly always refer to royals by their peerage titles, except for the King, Queen, and Prince and Princess of Wales.

Princely titles are fancy, but legally meaningless. A prince without a peerage is a commoner.

Also, the titles are often bestowed upon marriage as this neatly gets round the issue of what to call the new, non-royal spouse. E.g. when Will and Kate married they were made Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, which meant that both had a title. Otherwise they'd have to be referred to as "Prince William and Catherine", or the horribly outdated "Prince William and Princess William" (as per Princess Michael of Kent, who doesn't have a title in her own right).

If Charles really wanted to 'slim down' the monarchy, he'd retire these titles whenever they became free.

Looking at the rules for courtesy titles on the wiki link (you learn something new every day) James would be Earl of Wessex with no ’The’ but the Royal Family website has him as The Earl of Wessex so does that mean they have done something so that Edward isn’t the Earl if Wessex anymore? Or maybe I am overthinking it.

How does that slim the monarchy down?

Why? Edward is one of the few working royals. How would the royal family be any 'slimmer' if he remained a mere Earl? And Charles has made it into a life peerage only, so it's not like he's creating another royal dynasty.

@IcedPurple interesting, thank you.

I suspected it was something like that, but I still find it hard to wrap my head around.

Perhaps due to the fairytale / Disney notion of "Prince". It has just always seemed like the top rank (apart from King, obviously) to me, but it's actually not. Interesting.

With rule changes... I believe the precedent is they only apply to children born after the date. hence why Princess Anne is still below Andrew and Edward, and why Louise is below James.

So they could do a rule change saying that the titles are inherited by the eldest child... but it wouldn't effect the older members of the family.

Yes, princely title are very 'romantic' but they don't actually mean anything, especially if not accompanied by an HRH. Whereas peers have a separate status under the law, even if that's mostly theoretical these days.

If anyone was going to receive this title it should be him, he's an innoffensive bloke so there we go. But a title is just words isn't it... as long as he puts his heart and soul into DoE scheme, OK.

But he is going to be weighed down with medals, he could hardly move for them as well as sashes and gold ropes last time he dressed up for something.

I’m pleased for him in so far as they seem like a nice couple. Good compromise to make it lifetime as well. Not too much pressure on James as well.

I went to school with the Duchess of Edinburgh <preens>

You can't just say that! You need to spill the tea!

King Charles came on a school trip to the village where my mum lived during his Gordonstoun days. She loves to tell the story about how his security found him passed out drunk under a bush.

She also tells the story that Alex Salmond came to give a speech and he was caught snogging the barmaid. 😂

Sorry I am not saying this to be deliberately rude, and I’ve nothing personally against PE, but I can’t think of anyone less inspiring to a teen to head up the Duke of Edinburgh awards.

It should be someone with suitable skills like Bear Grylls or someone who can lead from the front. Not someone who couldn’t make it through their military training. Again not getting at PE for dropping out, he’s not the only one by any means, but it would have been a perfect job for Harry.

Having been picky over James’ title I am actually thrilled with this news and have surprised myself by being a bit emotional about it - because it is a reference to the memory of the late Queen and Duke of Edinburgh I think. Really sensible to make it a life time title too.

Nice one Edward

Bear Grylls is the chef scout, I wouldn’t think he’d do DofE too.

Chief scout!

Apparently her late mother was Irish.
Was she born and reared in Ireland or of Irish descent ?

But Philip wanted the title to go to Edward and he has already been working with the DofE awards. I don’t see why it has to be an ex military person who is the face of it. Surely having someone who cares about the participants and the award is most important The instructors can do all the physical stuff. And DofE is not all about physical stuff anyway. What about volunteering?

Relative to the discussion of women and titles, there are a few peerages (including earldoms), especially in the peerage of Scotland, that can be inherited by women, but no dukedoms.

Each peerage has its own letters patent which sets our what happens to the title. The most common arrangement is that it is "with remainder to heirs male of the body" which means that it passes to legitimate natural (ie not adopted) men. But you can have "heirs of the body", and many other variations. In this case the Dukedom has been granted without any remainder, which means that no one inherits it when the current holder dies and it reverts to the Crown. I imagine that Edward will outlive his older brother given their age gap. Which means that it will probably be William's to give away in the future.

Separately, they are starting to run out of traditional Royal Dukedom titles to give away. They've potentially only got York, Edinburgh and Cambridge left for future use, unless they want to be more creative in future.

He’s an inoffensive bloke??? 😂

I’ve got 3 brothers, and a gorgeous husband who are all inoffensive blokes - why don’t they get a title??? They work a THOUSAND times harder then this “inoffensive” bloke 🙄.