Arms: The Royal Arms, differenced by a label [labels assigned a sovereign's grandchild (bar the est s of a Prince of Wales) are hereditary (roy warrant 24 Feb 1975)] of five points argent, the centre and two outer points charged with a cross gules, and the inner points with a lion passant guardant. Crest: On a coronet composed of four crosses-patées alternated with four strawberry leaves, a lion statant guardant or, crowned with the like coronet, and differenced with the label as in the Arms. Supporters: The Royal Supporters, differenced with the like coronet and label.

THE 2ND DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, EARL OF ULSTER and BARON CULLODEN (RICHARD ALEXANDER WALTER GEORGE WINDSOR, KG, GCVO (1974)) [HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO, Kensington Palace, W8 4PU]; born Northampton 26 Aug 1944; s f 1974; educ Eton and Magdalene Coll Cambridge (MA, DipArch); RIBA, FSA, KStJ; Commr English Heritage, Memb St George's Chapel Advsy Ctee; Pres: Inst Advanced Motorists 1971–, Cancer Research Campaign 1973–, London Soc, Nat Assoc Boys Clubs' 1974–, Public Monuments and Sculpture Assoc 1998–, St Bartholomew's Hosp 1975–, Soc Architect Artists, Br Consultants Bureau 1978–; V-Pres: Br Leprosy Relief Assoc 1971–; Patron: Appeal to replace organ in Chapel Royal Tower London, ASH 1974–, Br-Mexican Soc, Habitat for Humanity Great Britain, Inst of Advanced Motorists, Internat Cncl on Monuments and Sites, London Choral Soc, Japan Soc, Nuffield Farming Scholarships Tst, Peterborough Cathedral Tst, Richard III Society 1980–, Roy Pioneer Corps Assoc, Soc Engineers 1974–, Samsung Br Legion Korean Scholarship Scheme 1998–, Severn Valley Railway, Silver Jubilee Walkway Tst 1978–,Victorian Soc 1976–; Ranger Epping Forest 1975–; Queen's Tstee Br Museum 1973–; FRSA 1976, Dep Col-in-Ch: Roy Glos, Berks and Wilts Regt 1994–, Roy Logistic Corps 1993–, Hon Air Cdre RAF Odiham, Hon Col Roy Mon RE (Militia) 1977, Cdre Roy Ulster Yacht Club 1974–, Govr Building Centre Tst 1991–, Hon Life Memb Friends of All Saints Brixworth 1991–, Grand Prior OStJ 1975–, Liveryman Vintners' Co, Tstee Br Museum, Hon Freeman Grocers' Co; Hon Freeman and Liveryman Goldsmiths' Co, Grand Cross Order St Olav Norway; married Barnwell Parish Church 8 July 1972 •Birgitte Eva, GCVO (1989), DStJ, Dep Col-in-Ch Adj Gen's Corps, Col-in-Ch: Roy Australian Army Educn Corps 1977–, Roy NZ Army Educn Corps 1985–; Cmdt-in-Ch St John's Ambulance Wales; Patron: Bobath Cymru, Enham Tst, BLISS (Baby Life Support Systems), Counsel and Care (Advice and Help for Older People), Fedn Army Wives, Friends of Institut Français, Nat Asthma Campaign, Notting Hill Housing Tst, Parkinson's Disease Soc, Assoc Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, Scottish Opera, St Peter's Research Tst, Cheltenham Internat Music Festival, Bobath Centre and Fndn for Study Infant Deaths; Ch Patron Women Caring Tst (for Children of Northern Ireland); Pres: London Regns WRVS, Roy Alexander and Albert Sch, Roy Sch Needlework, Civ Serv Sports Cncl, Roy Sch Bath; V-Patron The Queen's Club), yr daughter of Asger Preben Wissing Henriksen, lawyer, of Odense, Denmark, by his 1st w Vivian, daughter of Waldemar Oswald van Deurs, whose name his gdaughter assumed, and has:

1a +ALEXANDER PATRICK GREGERS RICHARD, Earl of Ulster; born St Mary's Hosp Paddington 24 Oct 1974

1a +Davina Elizabeth Alice Benedikte; born St Mary's Hosp Paddington 19 Nov 1977

2a +Rose Victoria Birgitte Louise; born St Mary's Hosp Paddington 1 March 1980

Gloucester, previous creations: Pre-Conquest Earldoms of Gloucester, but embracing a much wider territory than the county currently centred on that city, were held possibly by Brictric, son of Algar, alias Brictric Meaw, and more certainly by Swein, eldest son of Godwin Earl of Kent and elder brother of HAROLD, the last Saxon King of England. For the medieval blurring of any distinction between the county town (e.g., Gloucester) and county (e.g., Gloucestershire) when conferring earldoms which were nevertheless intended to make their possessor governor of an entire county, see principally WINCHESTER, M, preliminary remarks.

After the Conquest it is possible that the Earldom of Gloucester was held by (a) William FitzEustace, perhaps son of Eustace II Count of Boulogne, and (b) Robert FitzHamon, Sieur de Creully in the Calvados region of Normandy, allegedly grandson of Hamo Dentatus (‘The Toothy', i.e., probably buck-toothed).

An undoubted Earl of Gloucester, perhaps the first authentic such, at any rate after the Conquest, is Robert FitzHamon's son-in-law, another Robert, who was an illegitimate son of HENRY I and was so created in 1122. The Earldom passed to his eldest son, William FitzRobert, and from him to JOHN, later KING JOHN and husband from 1189 to 1199 (when he divorced her) of Isabel, the youngest of William FitzRobert's three daughters. On JOHN's coming to the throne the title did not merge in the Crown for it was not his in his own right but in right of his wife.

Isabel's situation now became that of a great heiress, for whoever she married next would gain the Earldom. JOHN prevented her taking a second husband at all for the time being, however, and exchanged the Earldom of Gloucester with Aumarie de Montfort, son of William FitzRobert's eldest daughter Mabel, for the comté of Evreux, which he then used as a dowry to secure the marriage of his niece Blanche with the King of France's son. Aumarie died childless and Isabel, who towards the end of JOHN's reign married as her second husband Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex and in right of his new wife now Earl of Gloucester too, died childless after marrying in the autumn of 1217 yet a third husband, Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent.

The latter seems not to have been recognised as Earl of Gloucester as well as of Kent, despite his wife's undoubted possession of the former Earldom by the time of their marriage. But then she died only a few days later and her sister Amice, by now the only one of William FitzRobert's daughters still living, seems to have been recognised as Countess of Gloucester till her own death some seven and a half years later. On the other hand Amice's son Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Hertford or of Clare (usually called the latter), was apparently acknowledged as Earl of Gloucester in addition to his other dignity from as soon as the month after his aunt Isabel's death back in 1217. For the subsequent history of the de Clare-held Earldom of Gloucester see HERTFORD, M, preliminary remarks.

The 7th and last de Clare Earl of Gloucester married Joan of Acre, second daughter of EDWARD I, and a son-in-law of theirs, the 1st Lord (Baron) Audley (qv, 1970 edn) was created Earl of Gloucester in March 1336/7. On his death without sons the Earldom expired. The title had now for three hundred years been largely conferred on those with close ties of blood to the King and held by descendants who had from time to time reinforced those ties by marriages with close relatives of susbsequent Kings. From then on, with the exception of the short-lived Earldom of Gloucester of 1397–99 (see FALMOUTH, V), the title of GLOUCESTER was conferred as a Dukedom, and on immediate members of the Royal Family: (a) THOMAS of Woodstock, EDWARD III's youngest son; (b) HUMPHREY of Lancaster, HENRY IV's youngest son; (c) RICHARD PLANTAGENET, later RICHARD III, younger brother of EDWARD IV; (d) PRINCE HENRY, CHARLES I's youngest son; (e) PRINCE WILLIAM HENRY, GEORGE III's younger brother (whose title was DUKE OF GLOUCESTER AND EDINBURGH; see EDINBURGH, D, above); (f) the present creation. Only one of these creations other than the present one lasted more than a generation, the exception being the combined Dukedom of Gloucester and Edinburgh.

The only son of QUEEN ANNE to live beyond infancy, PRINCE WILLIAM, was declared by his uncle, the then King, WILLIAM III, to be Duke of Gloucester at his birth in 1689, but no formal documentation for such a creation exists. The same is true of PRINCE FREDERICK, GEORGE II's Heir Apparent and father of GEORGE III.

Ulster, previous creations: An Earldom of Ulster was held by Hugh de Lacy between 1205 and 1242 and expired with him on the latter date. In 1264 the Earldom was revived for Walter de Burgh, thought to have been great-nephew of Hubert de Burgh, the Earl of Kent mentioned above. Through his mother he seems to have been great-nephew of the previous Earl of Ulster, Hugh de Lacy. On the death of Walter's great-grandson William de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster of the 1264 creation, the title apparently became held by the latter's sole daughter Elizabeth. She married EDWARD III's second surviving son LIONEL, DUKE OF CLARENCE, who also became known in right of his wife as EARL OF ULSTER. Their daughter Philippa, apparently Countess of Ulster in her own right, as her mother had been, married Edmund de Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, who as with his father-in-law was in addition known as Earl of Ulster, again in right of his wife. The Earldom of Ulster was drawn back into the Royal Family when Philippa's granddaughter Anne married her cousin Richard Earl of Cambridge (grandson of EDWARD III) and gave birth to Richard, 3rd Duke of York, also 6th Earl of March and 8th Earl of Ulster. The latter's son became EDWARD IV, when the Earldom of Ulster merged with the Crown. Ever since then the Earldom of Ulster has only ever been created as a junior appendage to the Dukedom of York (as in the case of the future JAMES II) or the Dukedom of York and Albany (see YORK, DUKE OF, previous creations, above), apart from in 1866, when it was one of the subsidiary titles created along with the Dukedom of Edinburgh (qv, previous creations).

Culloden, previous creation: A Barony of Culloden was conferred in 1801 along with the Dukedom of Cambridge on PRINCE ADOLPHUS FREDERICK, GEORGE III's seventh son, and expired with it on the death in 1904 of the grantee's son, the 2nd DUKE, who was uncle of QUEEN MARY, GEORGE V's wife.