Royal Style and Titles Act
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In Commonwealth realms, Royal Style and Titles Acts are passed at the beginning of each monarch's reign in order to declare the new sovereign's formal title.
The most significant of these Acts is the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 which was passed in recognition of the creation of the Irish Free State, a development that necessitated a change in King George V's title. The Act signified a change in the way that the Crown in the United Kingdom relates to the Crown in other Commonwealth realms and opening the way for the monarch to have a different title in each dominion and reflected the changed relationship between Britain and the dominions as outlined in the Balfour Declaration of 1926.
In 1953 the dominion governments agreed that the practice of separate titles should continue in the reign of the new Queen Elizabeth II. Each country adopted their own titles, the British act of parliament clearly stated that it applied only to the United Kingdom and those overseas territories whose foreign relations were controlled by the UK government.
