Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught Earl of Sussex Singed Royal Document Royalty UK for Sale

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Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught Earl of Sussex Singed Royal Document Royalty UK For Sale

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Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught Earl of Sussex Singed Royal Document Royalty UK:
$374.96

LOT-O188.For your consideration is an exceedingly rare and historically important original c.1897 hand-written and hand-signed royal letter / document by Arthur, Prince of Connaught, Son of Queen Victoria. Royal document measures approximately 4.75\" x 7.0\". Royalty autograph is manuscript hand-signed in fountain pen ink. Royal document is original. Condition is excellent. Museum quality. One of a kind. Guaranteed authentic.

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn (Arthur William Patrick Albert; 1 May 1850 – 16 January 1942), was the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He served as Governor General of Canada, the tenth since Canadian Confederation, and the only British prince to do so to date.

Arthur was educated by private tutors before entering the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich at 16 years old. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the British Army, where he served for some 40 years, seeing service in various parts of the British Empire. During this time, he was also created a royal duke, becoming Duke of Connaught and Strathearn as well as Earl of Sussex. In 1900 he was appointed as Commander in Chief of the British Army in Ireland, which he regretted; his preference was to join the campaign against the Boers in South Africa. In 1911, he was appointed as Governor General of Canada, replacing Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey, as viceroy. He occupied this post until he was succeeded by Victor Cavendish, 9th Duke of Devonshire, in 1916. He acted as the King\'s, and thus the Canadian Commander-in-Chief\'s, representative through the first years of the First World War.

After the end of his viceregal tenure, Arthur returned to the United Kingdom and performed various royal duties there and in Ireland, while also again taking up military duties. Though he retired from public life in 1928, he continued to make his presence known in the army well into the Second World War, before his death in 1942. He was Queen Victoria\'s last surviving son.

Arthur was born at Buckingham Palace on 1 May 1850, the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The prince was baptised by the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Bird Sumner, on 22 June in the palace\'s private chapel. His godparents were Prince William of Prussia (the later King of Prussia and German Emperor Wilhelm I); his great-uncle\'s sister-in-law, Princess Bernard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (for whom his maternal grandmother the Duchess of Kent stood proxy); and the Duke of Wellington, with whom he shared his birthday and after whom he was named. As with his older brothers, Arthur received his early education from private tutors. It was reported that he became the Queen\'s favourite child.

It was at an early age that Arthur developed an interest in the army, and in 1866 he followed through on his military ambitions by enrolling at the Royal Military College at Woolwich, from where he graduated two years later and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers on 18 June 1868. The Prince transferred to the Royal Regiment of Artillery on 2 November 1868 and, on 2 August 1869, to the Rifle Brigade, his father\'s own regiment, after which he pursued a long and distinguished career as an army officer, including service in South Africa, Canada in 1869, Ireland, Egypt in 1882, and in India from 1886 to 1890.

In Canada, Arthur, as an officer with the Montreal detachment of the Rifle Brigade, undertook a year\'s training and engaged in defending the Dominion from the Fenian Raids; there was initially concern that his personal involvement in Canada\'s defence might put the Prince in danger from Fenians and their supporters in the United States, but it was decided his military duty came first. Following his arrival at Halifax, Arthur toured the country for eight weeks and made a visit in January 1870 to Washington, D.C., where he met with President Ulysses S. Grant. During his service in Canada he was also entertained by Canadian society; among other activities, he attended an investiture ceremony in Montreal, was a guest at balls and garden parties, and attended the opening of parliament in Ottawa (becoming the first member of the royal family to do so), all of which was documented in photographs that were sent back for the Queen to view. However, Arthur was not just engaged in social and state functions; on 25 May 1870 he was engaged in fending off Fenian invaders during the Battle of Eccles Hill, for which he received the Fenian Medal.

On his mother\'s birthday (24 May) in 1874, Arthur was created a royal peer, being titled as the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex. Some years later, Arthur came into the direct line of succession to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in Germany, upon the death in 1899 of his nephew, Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, the only son of his elder brother, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. He decided, however, to renounce his own and his son\'s succession rights to the duchy, which then passed to his other nephew, Prince Charles Edward, the posthumous son of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.

Alongside his military career, the Duke continued to undertake royal duties beyond, or only vaguely associated with, the army. He also represented the monarchy throughout the Empire. On the return from a posting in India, he again, this time with his wife, toured Canada in 1890, stopping in all major cities across the country. He also toured Canada in 1906. In January 1903, the Duke and Duchess represented the new King Edward VII at the 1903 Delhi Durbar to celebrate his accession. On their way to India, the couple passed through Egypt where the Duke opened the Assuan dam on 10 December 1902.

In 1910, Arthur travelled aboard the Union-Castle Line ship Balmoral Castle to South Africa, to open the first parliament of the newly formed union, and in Johannesburg on 30 November he laid a commemorative stone at the Rand Regiments Memorial, dedicated to the British soldiers that died during the Second Boer War.

Prince Arthur was a Freemason and was elected as Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England when his elder brother was obliged to resign the office upon his accession in 1901 as King Edward VII. He was subsequently re-elected an additional 37 times before 1939, when the Prince was nearly 90 years of age.

It was announced on 6 March 1911 that King George V had, by commission under the royal sign-manual, approved the recommendation of his British prime minister, H.H. Asquith, to appoint Arthur as Governor General of Canada, the representative of the monarch. His brother-in-law, the Duke of Argyll, had previously served as the country\'s governor general, but when Arthur was sworn in on 13 October 1911 in the salon rouge of the parliament buildings of Quebec, he became the first Governor General who was a member of the British royal family.