Royal Visit to the USA

[McClef]

This is true only insofar as succession to the throne is concerned. Setting aside Princes William and Henry who have been given no subsidiary titles, Andrew has been given the dukedom of York, previously the property of his grandfather King George VI, Duke of York. This did not pass to his elder brother, who was passed over as the nearest heir male, but rather the title "Duke of York" was settled upon Prince Andrew at the time of his marriage.

William and Henry are in no hurry for additional titles - in fact William didn't even want to be addressed as "your royal highness" whilst he was studying at St Andrews. When and if they get married it is likely that then they would be given subsidiary titles like Andrew and Edward were when they tied the knot.

I'm not sure that "property" is the correct word in this respect. Nor am I sure what you mean by the "elder brother who was passed over as the nearest heir male." York reverted to the Crown because of the Duke of York succeeded his brother Edward VIII following the Abdication and he then created Edward as Duke of Windsor. It could not given to Henry of Gloucester nor George of Kent as they were not the sons of the holder to that point, but his brothers.

Having mentioned Victoria's unusual giving of a title other than York to her second son (Alfred Duke of Edinburgh) I remembered she then created her grandson George Duke of York later on - he was a second son but of the then Prince of Wales and had not been expected to succeed until his elder brother Albert Edward Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale died.

Edward VIII wasn't married to Mrs. Simpson at the time his father died, hence he automatically became king. Had he married Mrs. Simpson while still Prince of Wales then several possibilities existed, the two most likely being:
(1) The king could have declared the PoW out of the line of succession and the crown would have passed to the king's second son, the Duke of York;
(2) The marriage could have been declared morganatic, and Mrs. Edward Windsor (or, perhaps, Mrs. Edward Wales), much like the morganatic wife of William IV, would have had no role in the royal family.

It is extremely dubious that the king would have had the power to declare his eldest son to be out of succession upon his own authority no matter how much he preferred the Duke of York. Many kings had not got on well with their heirs and had other favourite sons (George II preferred William Duke of Cumberland to his son Frederick Prince of Wales for example). It would have required an act of parliament to change the succession.

A morganatic arrangement had in fact been suggested but rejected by Baldwin and his Cabinet as Constitutionally impossible.

And who is this "morganatic wife of William IV"? He was married to Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen who became his Queen. Are you confusing her with his previous mistress Dorothea Jordan with whom he had had 10 illegitimate children?

George V seems to have been a strong willed, rather domineering individual, who, by some accounts, was disappointed in all four of his sons: Edward, Prince of Wales, was seen as overly self-indulgent; Albert (the Duke of York and future George VI) was painfully shy, suffered from a very bad stammer, and wanted nothing more than to be more-or-less left alone; George, Duke of Kent, led a very louche existence which many would have found totally unsuited to a monarch, while Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was-- it is perhaps uncharitably said-- thick as two planks nailed together. Also, and this is important to remember, the issues surrounding Mrs. Simpson only came to be of cataclysmic importance after HRH the Prince of Wales became king.

There is his famous quote "I pray God that he may never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie, Lilibet and the throne." He considered that Albert had made a very suitable choice of wife and was enchanted by her, tolerating things such as her lateness that he never would in anyone else.

That said, there are many examples of British titles passing from father to daughter (Mountbatten), passing to a junior cadet of a family through the female line (Antrim) and skipping generations (Kildare). Some of these may have involved some sort of jiggry-pokery, but most were accomplished by petition to the sovereign, who, as the font of all honours, can assign titles to whomsoever she pleases, by her own mere motion.

Yes indeed the Monarch can grant petitions of this nature but these titles are not connected with the immediate royal family and most likely when the only alternative would be extinction of the title. They are not ones which are the property of the Crown as the royal titles are.