Duke of Wellington (title)

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 3rd of May 1814, Arthur Wellesley returned to Britain as the man who had driven Napoleon from the Iberian Peninsula. Within days, the Prince Regent signed the papers that made him Duke of Wellington. The title came from a manor in Somerset, chosen almost by accident, and it would outlast empires, dynasties, and two world wars. Who were the men who carried this name after him? And what does the extraordinary web of titles wrapped around the dukedom reveal about how Britain rewarded its greatest soldier?

• 2. A Name From Somerset

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  Richard Wellesley, Arthur's brother, went looking for a place-name that could become a title. He found a manor in the parish of Wellington, Somerset that was available for purchase, and noticed it sat close enough to the family surname to feel natural. Arthur was still in Spain commanding the army against the French, so Richard handled the purchase on his behalf. The first signature Arthur Wellesley ever wrote as "Wellington" dates to the 16th of September 1809, according to the book Wellington as Military Commander by Michael Glover. The title of Marquess of Wellington formally appeared in The London Gazette of the 4th of June 1814, which references a warrant dated the 25th of August 1812, though the dukedom itself was conferred on the 3rd of May 1814 after Napoleon's abdication.

• 3. Sixty Battles, Eleven Titles

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  Arthur Wellesley fought approximately sixty battles across his military career. Peers and contemporaries placed him alongside the 1st Duke of Marlborough and the 2nd Duke of Argyll as one of the finest soldiers Britain and Ireland had ever produced. The rewards heaped upon him were correspondingly vast. Foreign monarchs joined British royalty in granting him honours. The Kingdom of the Netherlands made him Prince of Waterloo in 1815. Spain gave him the dukedom of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812, together with a Grandee-ship, and later King Ferdinand VII granted him a large estate outside Granada for his service in the Peninsular War. Portugal bestowed the dukedom of Victoria in 1812, along with the Marquessate of Torres Vedras and the County of Vimeiro. Each title marked a specific theatre of war: Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain, Torres Vedras in Portugal, and Waterloo in what is now Belgium.

• 4. The Heirs After Wellington

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  Arthur Richard Wellesley, the 2nd Duke, was the son of the 1st Duke and held the title from 1852 to 1884. The succession then passed sideways: Henry Wellesley, the 3rd Duke, was a nephew of the 2nd, and his brother Arthur Charles Wellesley became the 4th Duke in 1900. The line grew precarious in the twentieth century. The 6th Duke, Henry Valerian George Wellesley, born in 1912, died in 1943 and left no wife. The title then jumped to Gerald Wellesley, the 7th Duke, who was the 6th Duke's uncle, born in 1885. Arthur Valerian Wellesley, the 8th Duke, held the title from 1972 until his death in 2014. The current, 9th Duke, Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley, born in 1945, is married to Princess Antonia of Prussia. Five of the nine Dukes have been made Knights of the Garter, the senior British order of knighthood.

• 5. The Colley-Wellesley Roots

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  The family's origins trace to the Colley or Cowley family, who came to Ireland from Glaston, in Rutland, around 1500. Sir Henry Colley was raised to the Peerage as Lord Glaston by Henry VIII. He married Catherine Wellesley Cusack, daughter of Thomas Cusack, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, whose own grandmother was a Wellesley. Generations later, Richard Colley inherited the estates of Dangan and Mornington from his cousin Garret Wesley. On the 23rd of December 1719, Richard Colley and his wife Elizabeth Sale, daughter of John Sale, Registrar of the Diocese of Dublin, adopted the surname Wellesley. The earldom of Mornington itself dated to 1760, when Garret Wesley received that title. Arthur Wellesley's father sat within this Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy, a class of wealthy agricultural and urban landowners that straddled both Britain and Ireland.

• 6. What Extinction Would Mean

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  The dukedom descends strictly through male heirs of the body. If that direct male line from the 1st Duke ever fails, the British dukedom, the Dutch princeship of Waterloo, and the Portuguese dukedom of Victoria would all become extinct. The Spanish dukedom of Ciudad Rodrigo, however, is the exception: it would continue in the female line of the 1st Duke's descendants, preserved by the terms of the Spanish grant. The Irish titles of Mornington and Wellesley would revert to the line of the Earl Cowley, a male-line descendant of a younger brother of the 1st Duke. Stratfield Saye House, near Basingstoke in Hampshire, remains the family seat; Apsley House in London is now held by English Heritage, though the family retain an apartment there.