The
peerageThe Peerage is a system of titles in the United Kingdom, which represents the upper ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system. The term is used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titles, and individually to refer to a specific title...
title
Duke of Windsor was created in the
Peerage of the United KingdomThe Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801. In that year, the Peerage of Great Britain was replaced by the Peerage of the United Kingdom...
in 1937 for
The Prince EdwardEdward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the British dominions, and Emperor of India from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December 1936, after which he was immediately succeeded by his younger brother, George VI...
, formerly King of the United Kingdom as well as each of the other
Commonwealth realmA Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 132 million; all but about two million live in the six most populous states, the United...
s. The dukedom takes its name from the town where the famous
Windsor CastleWindsor Castle, in Windsor in the English country of Berkshire, is the largest inhabited castle in the world and, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, is the oldest in continuous occupation...
is situated – having been the residence of English monarchs for over a thousand years the name emulated stability, tradition and the essence of being British (Windsor was also the surname of the Royal Family for much the same reasons).
Edward had abdicated on 11 December 1936 so that he could marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, who became
duchess of Windsor.
The
peerageThe Peerage is a system of titles in the United Kingdom, which represents the upper ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system. The term is used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titles, and individually to refer to a specific title...
title
Duke of Windsor was created in the
Peerage of the United KingdomThe Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801. In that year, the Peerage of Great Britain was replaced by the Peerage of the United Kingdom...
in 1937 for
The Prince EdwardEdward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the British dominions, and Emperor of India from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December 1936, after which he was immediately succeeded by his younger brother, George VI...
, formerly King of the United Kingdom as well as each of the other
Commonwealth realmA Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state within the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch. The sixteen current realms have a combined land area of 18.8 million km² , and a population of 132 million; all but about two million live in the six most populous states, the United...
s. The dukedom takes its name from the town where the famous
Windsor CastleWindsor Castle, in Windsor in the English country of Berkshire, is the largest inhabited castle in the world and, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror, is the oldest in continuous occupation...
is situated – having been the residence of English monarchs for over a thousand years the name emulated stability, tradition and the essence of being British (Windsor was also the surname of the Royal Family for much the same reasons).
Considerations leading to the creation
Edward had abdicated on 11 December 1936 so that he could marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, who became
duchess of Windsor. At the time of the abdication there was controversy as to how the ex-King should be referred to – other possibilities were the Dukedoms of
CambridgeDuke of Cambridge is a title occasionally conferred upon junior members of the British royal family...
or
ConnaughtThe title Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was granted by Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to her third son, Prince Arthur....
(though neither was likely because the Marquessate of Cambridge and the Dukedom of Connaught were both extant at the time). One of George III's younger sons had borne the title Duke of Sussex, but for unknown reasons that specific title has never been resurrected and so far as is known, no consideration was given to conferring it upon the abdicated king in 1936. Although the Duke of Connaught was also Earl of Sussex, that title was not in active use as his heir
Prince Arthur of ConnaughtPrince Arthur of Connaught was a member of the British Royal Family, a grandson of Queen Victoria. Prince Arthur held the title of a British prince with the style His Royal Highness...
was known as that. Nor do other available titles with Royal connections such as Kendal, Ross or Clarence appear to have been considered. One theory is that it was the Prime Minister
Stanley BaldwinStanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC was a British Conservative politician, statesman, and major figure on the political scene in the interwar years...
's idea to create the title Duke of Windsor. Another is that the new King
George VIGeorge VI was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 11 December 1936 until his death...
brought up the idea of a title just after the abdication instrument was signed, and suggested using "the family name" (as recounted in the Duke's memoir
A King's Story).
Neither the Instrument of Abdication signed by Edward VIII on 10 December 1936, nor the Abdication Act of 11 December 1936, indicated whether the king was renouncing the privileges of royal birth as well as relinquishing the throne. In retrospect this was a serious oversight, and it is unclear why no one realized the implications of the omission. As recounted in Lady Frances Donaldson's superb biography of the duke of Windsor, even before the formalities of abdication had been completed, some observers were of the opinion that the former king would be simply "Mr. Edward Windsor." But when consulted the future George VI gave sound reasons why his brother must remain a Royal Highness: the duke had been born the son of a (royal) duke – their father
George VGeorge V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 1910 through World War I until his death in 1936...
was
Duke of YorkThe title Duke of York is a title of nobility in the British peerage. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of the British monarch...
at the time of Edward VIII's birth. Therefore after the abdication, the former king would be at least Lord Edward Windsor, as a duke's son is known. George VI then pointed out that as Mr Windsor or Lord Edward Windsor, his brother could sit in the House of Commons. His advisors at once agreed that to make it impossible for that to happen, the ex-king must remain HRH. At the new king's order, Sir John Reith, head of the BBC, introduced the former king as "His Royal Highness, Prince Edward" when the latter broadcast from Windsor Castle on the evening of 11 December 1936. Thus at the time of Edward VIII's Abdication, the prevailing view – formulated by George VI himself – was that the former king had reverted to the rank of HRH, his right as the son of a British Sovereign. Since neither the Instrument nor the Act of Abdication explicitly stated otherwise, this was an entirely reasonable, if indeed not the only possible, conclusion.
At his
Accession CouncilIn the United Kingdom, the Accession Council is a ceremonial body which assembles in St. James's Palace upon the death of a monarch, to make a formal proclamation of the accession of his or her successor to the throne, and to receive a religious oath from the new monarch...
on 12 December 1936, moreover, King George VI announced, in the
allocutionGenerally, to allocute in law means "to speak out formally." In the field of apologetics, allocution is generally done in defense of a belief. In politics, one may allocute before a legislative body in an effort to influence their position on an issue...
usually given by the monarch just before taking the oath relating to the security of the
Church of ScotlandThe Church of Scotland , known informally by its Scots language name, The Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
, that he would create his brother Duke of Windsor, and that he wished him to be known as His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor. That declaration is recorded in the
London GazetteThe London Gazette is one of the official journals of record of the British government, and the most important among such official journals in the UK, in which certain statutory notices are required to be published...
.
Lack of a "Her Royal Highness" for the Duchess of Windsor
Although George VI's accession allocution had already declared that his first act was to create his elder brother Duke of Windsor, and that he willed his brother to be styled His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor, yet, Letters Patent were issued in 1937 to formalize the creation of the Dukedom, and further Letters Patent were issued in May of that year to regulate the Duke's right to the attribute of Royal Highness (although the pretext of the Letters Patent was the confirmation of the style of Royal Highness upon the Duke, in fact, its purpose was to restrict the title to the Duke alone, so as to exclude any future wife from sharing in it).
Thus, letters patent creating the title in May 1937 restricted the attribute of Royal Highness to the duke of Windsor alone, denying it to the woman for whom he had given up the throne. This denial became the focus of constitutional debate for the rest of the duke's life. The most easily understood notice of the issues involved is found in Lady Donaldson's book, published in the USA as "Edward and Mrs Simpson."
Letters patent issued by Queen Victoria in 1864 provided that the children and male-line grandchildren of a British Sovereign bear the attribute of Royal Highness by right of birth. Victoria made no provision for an abdicated Sovereign since in 1864 that possibility was virtually unimaginable. A straightforward construction of those letters patent leads to the conclusion that the duke of Windsor reverted to Royal Highness on his abdication, since the language of the Instrument and Act of Abdication can only be construed to mean that he relinquished the throne, but not his status as a Sovereign's son. Given the general rule in British law that a wife automatically takes her husband's rank upon marriage, Mrs Simpson consequently should have been addressed, upon marriage to the duke, as HRH.
Queen Victoria's Letters Patent, however, made reference to birth in the "lineal succession to the Crown", and the Duke of Windsor, although born in the line of succession, had succeeded to the Crown and then relinquished the Throne. Furthermore, the Act that gave effect to the abdication excluded the Duke's lineage from the line of succession established by the Act of Settlement. George VI's Letters Patent declared that the intention of Queen Victoria's Letters Patent was to only grant the style of Royal Highness to children and grandchildren of the monarch who were in lineal succession to the Crown, which the duke wasn't. George VI then granted the attribute of Royal Highness to the duke as a matter of royal favour, but restricted the use of the style so as not to include its enjoyment by a wife.
As Lady Donaldson explains, however, the Royal Family and ranking members of the Establishment were unwilling for this to happen because no one believed that the Windsors' marriage would endure. In the event of divorce, there was then no mechanism in place to deprive the duchess of the attribute of Royal Highness; such provision came about only in 1996 before the divorce of the
current duke of YorkThe Prince Andrew, Duke of York , is the second son and third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
and
Sarah FergusonSarah, Duchess of York , is a charity patron, spokesperson, writer, film producer, television personality and former member of the British Royal Family...
, when
Elizabeth IIElizabeth II is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known informally as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,...
issued Letters Patent providing that divorced wives of Princes of the United Kingdom lose the royal attribute. Thus at the time the duke of Windsor married Mrs Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor would remain HRH for life even if she and the duke divorced, no matter whom else she might marry. The duke, moreover, might marry again – for which he no longer needed the Sovereign's assent – and in that case another new HRH would come into existence, perhaps even less suitable than Mrs Simpson was judged to be.
The only solution was for George VI to adopt a fictive position and proceed as if the Duke of Windsor had to be re-created HRH, and that creation was framed so as to restrict the HRH to him and deny it to his wife. Whether George VI acted constitutionally in this matter is still a matter of debate, though with the deaths of the duke of Windsor in 1972 and of the duchess in 1986, the matter has become purely academic.
Royal arms
As the royal arms go hand-in-hand with the crown, the undifferentiated royal arms passed to George VI. It was and is common heraldic practice for the eldest son to difference his arms in his father's lifetime, but the Duke of Windsor was left in the unusual position of an eldest son needing to difference his arms after his father's death. This was done by means of a label argent of three points, bearing on the middle point a royal crown.
Extinction
On the death of the duke in 1972 this title became extinct. It is generally considered that, due to its origin, the title is very unlikely to be recreated in the future.
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