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younger sons and grandsons, when created Peers, are entitled to seats in the House of Lords, at the left hand of the throne; but when, by the death of their father, they become only collaterally related to the Crown, they take their places as first upon the Ducal bench.

The robe of estate of the Prince of Wales is of purple velvet lined with ermine, and trimmed with a cape of ermine descending from the neck to the elbow, distinguished by five rows of ermine tails. His cap is of velvet, turned up with ermine, and having a tassel of gold on the crown. Over it is worn a coronet composed of a circlet of gold enriched with jewels; above its upper rim rise four fleur-de-lis and four crosses-pattée alternately; from them an arched diadem of gold crosses the head, and is finished at top with a ball surmounted by a cross-pattée. This coronet is engraved at the head of the present article. It is, in fact, the same as the imperial crown, with the difference of having but one diadem, instead of that one being crossed, as in the crown, by a second. The coronet appertaining to the younger sons and to the daughters of the Sovereign differs from that of the Prince of Wales only by the omission of the diadem and the ball and cross which surmount it. The nephews and nieces of the Crown have their coronets differenced by the substitution of four strawberry leaves for the four fleur-de-lis.

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The title of Duke, though first in rank, and in its deriva

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tion the most ancient, is much later in its introduction to our hereditary Peerage than that of Earl and Baron.

The word is found almost literally in the Latin Dux, which in ancient Rome signified the leader of an army, but in the Lower Empire became the title of a local military Lieutenant of the Emperor; and in this sense was transferred to the Western Empire, under the Franks and Germans, but speedily grew in the latter into the designation of hereditary feudal rank and power, inferior only to that of a King. Among our Saxon ancestors the title was in frequent use in its Latin military sense; it is given by Ethelwerd (a Saxon writer) to Hengist, the first Saxon invader of Britain; and in another old Saxon manuscript the brothers Hengist and Horsa are called Heretoga, the same word, Herzog, still signifying a Duke in Germany; and in the above-mentioned manuscript it is used in its ancient proper sense, of the leader of an army. Here, also, the title soon acquired a territorial signification, and in the earlier Saxon documents is subscribed as synonymous with Comes or Earldormen, till the reign of Canute; when the Danish word Eorle began to prevail, but did not entirely supersede the more ancient term before the time of the Normans; for Henry of Huntingdon calls Godwin (the father of King Harold) Dux.

After the Norman Conquest, which changed the military polity of the nation, the Kings themselves continuing for many generations Dukes of Normandy, they would not honour any subjects with the title of Duke, till the time of EDWARD III., who, claiming to be King of France, and thereby merging the Ducal in the Royal dignity, in the eleventh year of his reign created his son, Edward the Black Prince, Duke of Cornwall; and many, of the royal family especially, were afterwards raised to the like honour, "However, in the reign of Queen ELIZABETH, a.d. 1572, the whole order," says Judge Blackstone," became utterly extinct." But this expression requires some qualification, for, though the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk, in that

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year did for the time extinguish the highest grade of the Peerage, yet it contained in itself the principle of vitality; for the heirs of two attainted Dukedoms, those of Norfolk and Somerset, enjoyed the honours of the Peerage by the respective titles of Earl of Arundel and Earl of Hertford, till the higher rank was restored to each by King CHARLES II., with the original precedency.

Soon after the temporary suspension of the Ducal title in England, King JAMES VI., then reigning in Scotland, bestowed it, for the first time in that kingdom, (with some unimportant and temporary exceptions,) on a subject not the son of a King; the Nobleman so advanced being Esme Stuart, Earl of Lennox, the King's near relation on the father's side, whom, in 1581, he created Duke of Lennox. The same King having acquired the sovereignty of the three kingdoms, by succeeding to the throne of ELIZABETH after her decease, under the name of JAMES I., revived this order in England in 1623, by raising Ludowick, second Duke of Lennox, to the rank of Duke of Richmond; and the following day bestowed the same honour on his favourite, George Villiers, whom he created Duke of Buckingham. James added no other Dukes to the Peerage; and great as was the need of his son, King CHARLES, for the support of his most powerful nobles, he refrained from increasing this small number in England, though he renewed the title of Duke of Richmond to James Stuart, the brother and heir of the first Duke, on whose death it had become extinct by the failure of issue male; and in Scotland he created the Duke of Hamilton only. The Ducal dignity existed at the restoration of CHARLES II. in no families but these three. But that Monarch, prodigal in all things, not only restored the two forfeited Dukedoms of Norfolk and Somerset, but gave new patents for the title with unsparing hand, especially to his illegitimate sons. Five English and three Scotch Dukedoms of this reign are still in existence, though two of the latter merge in the superior titles of Richmond and Buccleuch. To the same King Ireland was also indebted

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for the Ducal title, to which James, Marquis and twelfth Earl of Ormonde, was elevated in 1661, and subsequently was also created Duke of Ormonde in England. The English title was attainted in 1715, in the person of his grandson the second Duke; and the Irish Dukedom finally became extinct in 1758, on the death of the Earl of Arran, brother to the second Duke, who succeeded to, but did not assume, the superior title. The only Duke now existing in Ireland is the Duke of Leinster, of the family of Fitz-Gerald, so created by King GEORGE III. in 1766.

In heraldic documents, a Duke is styled the High, Puissant, and Most Noble Prince; his general style is, His Grace, and Most Noble in letters of form he is addressed, "My Lord Duke, may it please your Grace."

The coronation-robe of a Duke (and that in which he would be invested, were not the ceremonies of investiture now dispensed with in the patents of creation) is a mantle of crimson velvet, lined with white taffeta, and trimmed with a cape of ermine reaching from the neck to the elbow, distinguished by four rows of black spots. His parliamentaryrobe is of fine scarlet cloth, lined with taffeta, and doubled with four guards of ermine at cqual distances, with gold lace above each guard, and is tied up to the left shoulder with white ribbon. His cap is of crimson velvet, lined with ermine, having a gold tassel on the top. His coronet, worn over the cap, is a circlet of gold enriched with jewels, and set round with eight golden strawberry-leaves rising from its upper rim.

The eldest son of a Duke, though in law only an Esquire, takes by courtesy his father's second title, and is legally styled thus" Henry Granville Fitzalan Howard, Esq., commonly called Earl of Arundel and Surrey ;"-but to whatever grade of the Peerage that title may belong, he ranks next after the Marquises. The Duke's daughters and younger sons take by courtesy the title of Lady or Lord, before their Christian and surnames, and are styled in law,

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"Mary Charlotte Fitzalan Howard, commonly called Lady Mary Charlotte Fitzalan Howard;" or "Edward George Fitzalan Howard, Esq., commonly called Lord Edward George Fitzalan Howard," and all the children bear also by courtesy the style of Right Honourable.

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The word Marchio was, in the Saxon and early Norman periods of our history, applied to the Baron or Earl whose office it was to preserve the frontier, (as on the borders of Wales or Scotland,) usually called the Marches, free from the inroads of an enemy: so in Germany the Count or Graf of the border is called Markgraf. As distinguished from other titles of honour, it was unknown in this country till, in 1386, RICHARD II. created his favourite, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, Marquis of Dublin, and gave him precedence between the degrees of Duke and Earl. From that time it occurs very sparingly in the lists of the Peerage, and seems most frequently to have been little more than a step to the higher honours of the Dukedom, and otherwise to have been peculiarly liable to extinction; for in the long period of 500 years from the date of that first creation, only in twelve instances has the title of Marquis existed as the chief honour of its possessor for a longer term than five years. The first Marquis was created Duke of Ireland in the year following his advance to the Marquisate. It appears from the circumstances attending a second experiment, that in those early times there existed a prejudice against this newly invented honour. John de Beaufort (the eldest legitimated son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster) was created by the same King, in 1397, Marquis of Dorset ; and that dignity being taken from him in the first year of

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