Today, we introduce one of Britain's nobility titles, the Duke of Beaufort, established in 1682 and the 12th Duke of Beaufort by Henry Somerset in 2017. The title was hereditary by his eldest son, marquess of Worcester.
In 1682, King Charles II of England established the title of Nobility for Henry Somerset, 3rd Marquis of Worcester. Henry Somerset was a descendant of Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester and a member of the Knights of the Order of the Garder, and the father of the 1st Earl of Worcester was Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, a leader of Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses. Beaufort refers to a castle in the Champagne region of France, now Montmorency-Beaufort, the only ducal territory named after a place outside the British Isles.
The Duke of Beaufort's paternal lineage originated from The Plantagenet Dynasty's John Gaunt, the son of Edward III, but this claim was questioned after Y chromosome DNA analysis of Richard III's remains. Most male descendants of the 5th-generation Duke of Beaufort were found to carry a relatively common type of Y chromosome, unlike the rare lineage found in the remains of Richard III. There are many reasons for this false paternity, with mistakes possible anywhere in the generations between Richard III and the 5th Duke of Beaufort, or in Richard III's grandfather, Richard of Königsberg, whose paternity with his father was questioned, despite his father's admission of his identity.
The original owner of Beaufort Castle was John of Gauent, the basis of the Duke of Somerset's Beaufort estate. Gaunt's mistress was also his 3rd wife, Catherine Swinford, who gave his four children the surname Beaufort. The matrilineal lineage of the Beaufort family dates back to Henry VII of England, the illegitimate son of Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester (circa 1460 – 15 March 1526), the mistress of Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset.
The fiefdom of the Dukes of Beaufort was once Lagland Castle in Monmouthshire, which in 2017 was changed to Bad Milton Manor near Ziping-Sodbury in Gloucestershire. The main burial places of the Dukes and Duchesses of Beaufort are the Church of St. Michel and the All-Angel in Bad Milton. The Duke of Beaufort had a hunting party of the Duke and a group of foxhounds, with the Duke himself captaining the hunting team.
Caption: The coat of arms of the Duke of Beaufort
The Duke of Beaufort had two vassal titles, the Marquis of Worcester in 1642 and the Earl of Worcester in 1514, a courtesy title of the Duke's eldest son or heir. The eldest son of the Marquis of Worcester inherited the title of Earl of Glamorgan, and the eldest son of the Earl of Glamorgan was known as viscount Grosmont, and these two titles were established by Charles I in 1644 for Edward Somerset (who later succeeded his father as the 2nd Marquis of Worcester). Although the Earl of Glamorgan and the Viscount Gromont were not recognized as substantial titles at the time of Charles II's Restoration, they continued to be used as ceremonial titles to distinguish the heirs of the Marquis of Worcester. Currently, all vassal titles of the Duke of Beaufort are English nobles.
Photo note: Coat of arms of the Duke of Beaufort
The Dukes of Beaufort also emerged as a famous British Field Marshal, who was Baron Raglan (1788-1855), the younger son of the 5th Duke of Beaufort, who was also born with the title of Lord FitzRoy Somerset, where the Lord was an honorific title for the duke's son, not a substantial title of nobility, and he actually had the title of noble when he was later promoted to baron for his military merits.
Baron Raglan had been a soldier since childhood, had fought in the Crimean War before the Russian Empire, and was killed on 28 June 1855 on the front lines of the Battle of Sebastopol, where his body was transported back to Bristol and buried at Bad Milton Manor. However, Baron Raglan, despite his life on horseback, fought against the powerful Russian Empire and suffered many defeats, so he suffered a lot of criticism in England during his lifetime.