The Titles Deprivation Act of 1917 seems like the only time titles were stripped from members of the Royal Family. Generally Letters Patent were used to grand or extend titles.
It seems that before 1714, the title of prince and the style of HRH was not customary in usage. Sons and daughters of the sovereign were not automatically or traditionally called a prince or princess. An exception was the Prince of Wales, a title conferred on the eldest son of the sovereign since the reign of King Edward I of England.
In the Kingdom of Scotland, even though an honorific principality was created by King James VI, the heir-apparent was only referred to as Duke of Rothesay. Some others include John, brother of King Richard I and later King John, who is sometimes called Prince John.
Future Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I were at times were called Princess Mary or Princess Elizabeth but there is also evidence of them being called Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth. Same with the future Queen Anne who was called Her Highness The Lady Anne.
After the accession of King George I of Great Britain (the first monarch from the House of Hanover), it became customary for the sons of the sovereign and grandsons of the sovereign in the male line to be titled 'Prince' and styled His Royal Highness (abbreviated HRH). Great-grandsons of the sovereign were princes styled His Highness (abbreviated HH).
Here are a couple of examples of titles and styles being elevated...there were many more.
HH Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1776 – 1834) was the son of Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, the third son of Frederick Louis Prince of Wales (George II's eldest son).
In 1816 he married his first cousin Princess Mary, the fourth daughter of George III.
On their wedding day, Mary's brother, The Prince Regent, raised the bridegroom's style from Highness to Royal Highness, an attribute to which Mary's rank as daughter of the King already entitled her.
Prince Edward (Edward VIII), Prince Albert (George VI) and Princess Mary (Princess Royal) all had thier styles elevated.
As a great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria, Edward, Albert and Mary were styled His/Her Highness from birth. In 1898, Queen Victoria issued Letters Patent which granted the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales the style Royal Highness.
On October 22, 1948, George VI issued letters patent allowing the children of his daughter Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, and son-in-law Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to assume princely titles and the style Royal Highness; they would not have been entitled to them ordinarily, as grandchildren in the female line, until their mother ascended the throne as Elizabeth II.
The recent move by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark to remove the princely titles from four grandchildren reminds me: has there been another case in royal history of a massive overhaul? I know that such a thing happened in the UK in 1917, but the circumstances were entirely different.
After all, World War I was in progress, and hence hostile anti-German sentiment prevailed. As such, King George V was obliged to change the house name of the reigning dynasty from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. He also stripped all his Coburg and Hanoverian cousins of their British royal titles, and made his Teck and Battenberg cousins trade away their German morganaut princely titles for British peerages or noble titles. Hence, the demotion of HSH Princess Louise of Battenberg to Lady Louise Mountbatten.
What are other comparable situations, in Great Britain or elsewhere?
http://europeanroyalhistory.wordpress.com/551
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