Alastair Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn

Alastair Arthur Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (formerly Prince Alastair of Connaught and Strathearn; 9 August 1914 – 26 April 1943) was a member of the British Royal Family, a great-grandson of Queen Victoria through his father and great-great-grandson of Victoria through his mother. Prince Alastair was denied the title of a British prince and the style His Highness in 1917. After this, he used a courtesy title from his mother, Earl of Macduff, and later, upon inheriting his grandfather's dukedom, The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.

Early life

Alastair was born on 9 August 1914 at his parents' home at 54 Mount Street, Mayfair, London (now the Brazilian Embassy). His father was Prince Arthur of Connaught, the only son of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. His mother was Princess Arthur of Connaught (before her marriage Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife), the eldest daughter of Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife and Louise, Princess Royal. As a great grandchild of Queen Victoria through the male line, Alastair was styled His Highness Prince Alastair of Connaught from birth.

The Prince was baptised at his parents' home and his godparents were King George V (his maternal great-uncle), The King of Spain (for whom The Lord Farquhar, a Lord in Waiting to King George, stood proxy), Queen Alexandra (his maternal great-grandmother), The Duke of Connaught (his grandfather, for whom a Major Malcolm Murray stood proxy), The Duchess of Argyll (his grandaunt), and The Princess Mary (his cousin).^[1]

House of Windsor

Shortly after Prince Alastair was born, World War I broke out, prompting strong anti-German feelings in the United Kingdom. George V responded to this by changing the name of the Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the House of Windsor and relinquishing all Germanic titles belonging to royals who were British citizens.

In Letters Patent dated 20 November 1917, George V undertook further restructuring of the royal styles and titles by restricting the titles of Prince or Princess and the style of Royal Highness to the children of the sovereign, the children of the sovereign's sons, and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. This excluded Alastair, who was only a great-grandson of a sovereign (and was not the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales). It further stated all titles of "the grandchildren of the sons of any such Sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) shall have the style and title enjoyed by the children of Dukes."^[2]

Army service

Lord Macduff received his education at Bryanston and at Sandhurst. In January 1935, he received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Scot Greys (2nd Dragoons), his father's regiment, based in Egypt from 1936. In 1939, Lord Macduff was assigned to Ottawa as aide-de-camp to his kinsman The Earl of Athlone, then Governor General of Canada, the post his own grandfather had held during the First World War. He succeeded his grandfather as Duke of Connaught and Earl of Sussex in 1942 and died in Ottawa "on active service" in 1943 in unusual circumstances. The diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, King George VI's private secretary, published in 2006, recorded that both the regiment and Athlone had rejected him as incompetent and he fell out of a window when drunk and perished of hypothermia overnight.^[3]

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 9 August 1914 – 20 November 1917: His Highness Prince Alastair of Connaught
• 20 November 1917 – 26 January 1942: Earl of Macduff
• 16 January 1942 – 26 April 1943: His Grace The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn

Arms

In 1942, on the inheritance of his grandfather's dukedom, he was granted arms, being, quarterly, first and fourth his grandfather's arms (being the royal arms, difference with a three-point label argent, the first and third points bearing fleurs-de-lys azure, the second a cross gules), second that of Fife, and third of Duff.

Upon his death, the Dukedom of Connaught and Strathearn reverted to the crown. His first cousin, James George Alexander Bannerman Carnegie (b. 23 September 1929), succeeded as 3rd Duke of Fife and Earl of Macduff, upon Princess Alexandra's death on 26 February 1959.

Place in the line of succession

Alastair was born 9th in the line of succession, behind the six children of George V, his grandmother and his mother. When he died he was 12th in the line of succession. His mother and he were the first two people behind the descendants of George V.

Ancestry

References

1. ^ Yvonne's Royalty Home Page — Royal Christenings
2. ^ At that point, the three year-old became known as Alastair Arthur Windsor, Earl of Macduff. Although second in line to the dukedom of Connaught and Strathearn as well as earldom of Sussex at the time of his birth, heir of his father who was the heir apparent, he was the heir apparent to his mother's dukedom of Fife. Therefore, he used his mother's secondary peerage as a courtesy title.
3. ^ CWGC entry