PRINCE Harry could be given a cursed title on his wedding day – or, at very least, one seriously tainted by bad luck.
On May 19, so the fevered speculation goes, Harry will become Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan Markle the Duchess of Sussex. The Queen will also confer Scottish titles on the couple, and the bookmakers have made the Earl and Countess of Ross their favourites.
Prince William and Kate Middleton were made Earl and Countess of Strathearn as well as becoming Duke and Duchess of Cambridge when they were married, so it’s highly likely that the Queen will give her other grandson a couple of titles, too.
It matters probably not a hoot to anybody except the royal-infatuated mainstream media, but the Queen and Prince Harry should not entertain for one second the idea of him becoming Earl of Ross.
The last royal to have the title Earl of Ross was none other than King Charles I. The last monarch of the United Kingdom to be born in Scotland, Charles Stuart was created Earl of Ross at the same time as he became Duke of Albany. Charles met a grisly end on the executioner’s block in 1649, and the title died with him as it was not passed on to his son, Charles II.
A previous Earl of Ross and Duke of Albany also met a grisly end, as he was Henry, Lord Darnley, the husband of Mary Queen of Scots and father of James VI and I, who was murdered at Kirk o’ Field in Edinburgh in 1567. His assassins were never caught, though the Earl of Bothwell was heavily implicated in the plot to kill the unpopular and pox-ridden Darnley and the Earl of Morton had the murder added to the list of charges or which he was executed as an enemy of the young James VI.
Even further back, the Earldom of Ross was granted to the second son of King James III, also called James, in 1481. He was his father’s favourite, which spelled curtains for both Jameses – in James III’s case, he was killed at the Battle of Sauchieburn by the forces of his rebellious son who became James IV. In turn he decided to sort out his brother James – both had the same name, for reasons not fully known – for being their father’s favourite so he elevated him to being Duke of Ross but also made him Archbishop of St Andrews, so that James of Ross, as he was known, fathered no legitimate children before he died at the age of 27 in 1503.
The previous line of the Earls of Ross lasted from around 1225 to 1415, when the last of that line, the hunchbacked Countess Euphemia, resigned the title in favour of her protector Robert, Duke of Albany, who died in 1420.
It did his family no good either, because King James I came home from exile and had most of the family of the Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross executed for treason. So if Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get to read this, please tip off your granny that you’ll take the Earldom of Auchenshuggle or Renton or Garthamlock – anywhere but Ross.
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