(Vol. v., p. 320.)
Your correspondent is alarmed lest the honour he claims for the
Lancastrians should be denied them, because it has been "discovered that
William III. never created himself Duke of Lancaster." Where is it
asserted that either he or any other of our sovereigns ever did? When
Henry of Bolingbroke merged the lesser name of duke in the greater name
of king, he was no more Duke of Lancaster than he was Earl of Derby or
Duke of Hereford; but the title of Duke of Lancaster he willed not to be
lost altogether as the others were, and therefore by an act of
parliament (1 Hen. IV., Art. 81.) it was enacted _Que le Prince porte le
nom de Duc de Lancastre_. The act, after reciting that "our said Lord
the King, considering how Almighty God of his great grace had placed him
in the honorable Estate of King, and nevertheless he cannot yet for
certain cause bear the name of Duke of Lancaster," then ordains that
"Henry his eldest son should have and bear the name of Duke of
Lancaster, and that he be named Prince of Wales, Duke of Aquitaine, of
Lancaster, and of Cornwall, and Earl of Chester." The fact is, that the
King or Queen of England cannot be Duke or Duchess in the realm of
England. Our kings have held inferior titles drawn from other kingdoms,
as Duke of Normandy and Earl of Anjou; but Lord Coke says the sovereign
cannot be _rex_ and _dux_ in the same realm. The Queen, as queen, holds
her palatinate of Lancaster, and the other duchy lands and franchises;
but she holds them _jure ducatus_, so distinguished from those estates
which she holds _jure coronæ_. She cannot however properly be styled
Duchess of Lancaster.