Duke and Duchess and other royal tiutles.

QUOTE from Jesse Dylan:"The essence of all health begins with joyful living."

The wedding of  William and Kate got my curiosity aroused about royal titles in the U.K. Ruth Ann and I got up at 4:15 am to watch. What a great way to spend the day of April 29, 2011.

When I heard that Queen Elizabeth had given grandson William the title of Duke of Cambridge I got to wondering what that was all about.So I did some research on Yahoo and found out a few things. Here is what I LEARNED:

It has become a royal tradition for the queen to confer a royal title on her own kids and her grandchildren.
They usually get the title of a duke or duchess but not always. Prince Edward, the Queen's son, was going to be given the title of Duke of Cambridge - that is until he watched SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, which had a character called the Earl of Wessex. He liked the sound of it and requested that title instead.

There are five titles to British royalty. These are the titles, in descending order of precedence, or rank:

1. duke - duchess
2. marquess - marchioness
3. earl - countess
4. viscount - viscountess
5. baron - baroness

Dukes or Duchesses used to have land to rule over and they could  generate income from it. But today it is mostly a royal title with no principality or land to rule. A duke is the highest rank below that of king or queen in the British nobility.

William also becomes the Earl of Stratheam and Baron of Carrickfergus, making Kate a countess and baroness as well. These royal titles go back hundreds o f years, at least to the Middle Ages.

I found this information quite interesting. As the Brits would say, "It was bloody good."