Oh Fergie, Fergie, Fergie

Today Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, is supposed to be on her way to Los Angeles, California to "accept an award for her charity work". Rather ironic considering that it has just come out that "Fergie"was caught on tape accepting a $57,000 downpayment of a whopping $720,000 bribe to buy access to her husband, HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York. You can read the details at the link provided but I would just like to say that I've never been a very big fan of Fergie but this surprised even me. I wonder what all of those who think HM the Queen was cold and unkind toward Fergie are thinking now? Perhaps Her Majesty is a better judge of character than most would like to believe.

Battlefield Royal: Prince Frederick, Duke of York

HRH Prince Frederick Augustus was born on August 16, 1763, the second child of Their Majesties King George III and Queen Charlotte of Great Britain and Ireland. When he was only 6 months old King George III had young Frederick elected Prince-Bishop of Osnabruck in Germany, making him the youngest bishop on record to this day. Early on his father decided that Prince Frederick would have a military career and sent him to stay in his Hanoverian possessions where he lived a rather dissolute life while observing the tactics and strategies of the nearby Prussian and Austrian armies. He also went to university while in Germany and in 1782 was appointed colonel of the 2nd Horse Grenadier (Life) Guards and in 1784 was promoted to major general and colonel of the elite Coldstream Guards.

That same year Prince Frederick was given a place on the Privy Council and given the title of Duke of York and Albany and Earl of Ulster. In 1787 there were rumors that the American rebels planned to make the Duke the King of the United States but they were trumped up rumors and nothing more. The Duke returned to Britain as planned and took his seat in the House of Lords. He ran afoul of his brother the Prince of Wales over the regency crisis but was soon put out of the way when given command of the British army sent to secure the Low Countries in 1793. The Duke landed his forces and soon besieged Dunkirk and was supposed to be working in cooperation with the Austrians in what is now Belgium. However, the French had recently adopted the leveé en masse which brought a horde of untrained but zealous French troops to his front.

So, the “Grand Old Duke of York” (as he came to be known) had his butt handed to him and had to vamoose á Britannia. King George III rewarded him by promoting him to commander-in-chief of the British army (succeeding methodical and coldly effective Lord Amherst). In 1799 the Duke of York took to the field again with the Anglo-Russian invasion of the Netherlands (Batavian Republic). However, once again the Duke was thwarted by the Franco-Dutch forces and was forced to return home with little more than the capture of the ice-bound Dutch fleet to show for his effort. In short, the Duke of York had pretty much been a failure as a battlefield commander, however, that did not mean he was an ineffective general.

The Duke of York had married his cousin, the Prussian Princess Frederica Charlotte, but the two never had any children and the stories of his mistresses eventually got him into some trouble when it seemed that a mistress was being bribed to influence his appointments. However, the Duke weathered that storm and returned to his command and proved to be a very effective “desk general”. This is most often used as a derogatory term but, any army does need desk generals as well as fighting ones. The Duke of York was a very capable military administrator and he enacted a number of reforms in organization, training and logistics that proved invaluable in the coming campaigns against Napoleonic France. His job may not has been as glorious as that of the Duke of Wellington, but in all fairness the Duke of York deserves a fair share of the credit for building and supplying the military forces that Wellington led to victory. The Duke of York died in 1827 as a result of health problems brought on by his rather overindulgent lifestyle.

Royal Profile: Prince Edward Duke of York

HRH Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany was the second son of Frederick Prince of Wales and Augusta of Saxe-Gotha; he was the younger brother of HM King George III. Edward was born on March 25, 1739 and was baptized Edward Augustus at Norfolk House by Thomas Secker, Bishop of Oxford. His godparents were King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia (Edward’s great-uncle) who was acted for by the Duke of Queensberry; the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel who was acted for by Lord Carnarvon and his aunt the Duchess of Saxe-Weissenfels who was acted for by Lady Charlotte Edwin, daughter of the fourth Duke of Hamilton.

As a boy the Duke of York, with his brother, went through long hours of schooling in arithmetic, Latin, geometry, writing, religion, French, German, Greek and even dancing to be well rounded. For the future George III the young Prince Edward, Duke of York, was his only constant companion but it was Edward who was their mother’s favorite. As he grew up, quite unlike his simple and solitary brother, the Duke of York became a very popular figure in London society. Having an interest in the sea the Duke requested and was granted a commission in the Royal Navy in which he served during the French and Indian War, taking part in the threatening moves and raids on the French coast and saw action in the British defeats at the battles of St Malo and St Caste in 1758. On April 1, 1760 Edward officially received his titles from his grandfather King George II and was created Duke of York and Albany and Earl of Ulster.

When King George III came to the throne he made the Duke of York a privy councilor. As was typical in the House of Hanover, family warmth and family loyalty did not all go together. Edward was there to welcome his brother’s bride to England, being very courteous to her, but he also later joined with members of the opposition to the King’s government. Those who knew the Duke of York described him as silly, frivolous, rather a chatter-box, someone who loved a good practical joke and who did not keep the most upright company. He was rather put off when his brother the King did not make him bishop of Osnabruck (which oddly enough did not require one to be a cleric) and the two never returned to the close companionship they had as children.

In 1767 the Duke of York was on a tour of the continent. He became ill while in France at a ball but refused to stop but insisted on going on his way to Genoa where he was to meet a mistress of his. On the way he stopped in at the Principality of Monaco where he stood in his full admiral's uniform while the Monegasque troops saluted and fired their artillery in welcome. Becoming more ill by the minute the Duke had to be taken to bed in the Princely Palace. HSH Prince Honore III rushed home to look after so prestigious a guest and saw to it the Duke received the best care he could provide but it was to no avail and the Duke of York passed away in a bed room in the Princely Palace of Monaco which has been known as the York Room ever since. Before his death on September 17 he dictated an apologetic letter to his brother George III (whom he had earlier forbidden Honore III to contact) and thanked Prince Honore for all his care. Prince Honore took great care to follow all protocol exactly with all of the pomp and ceremony for the lying in state and the send-off of the body that Monaco could muster. Afterwards the British king sent the Prince of Monaco two of his late brother's finest race horses and invited him to Britain.

British society mourned the loss of the Duke of York, known as a rather frivolous dandy but popular for all of that. There are a number of lasting reminders of this long past Duke of York, his name having been given to a peninsula that is the northernmost point in Australia, a group of islands off Papua New Guinea, a county in the Commonwealth of Virgnia and a room in the Princely Palace of Monaco.
(more details on the Duke's passing can be found at The Death of the Duke of York at Mad for Monaco)