Kinlight · The British Royal Line

Frederick Duke of York

1763 – 1827 · Generation XXXII · Commander-in-Chief of the Army · House of Hanover

Portrait of Frederick Duke of York

Frederick Duke of York (1763–1827). Commander-in-Chief of the Army. The second son of George III and Queen Charlotte, he became prince-bishop of Osnabrück at six months old, drawing its rich revenues until 1803, and was marked out by his father for a soldier’s life. His field commands went poorly: the Flanders campaign of 1793–95 mixed victories with defeats, and the 1799 expedition to Holland ended in an agreed withdrawal, leaving him to be mocked, perhaps unfairly, as the “Grand Old Duke of York.” As commander-in-chief from 1795, though, he pushed through sweeping reforms that shaped the army later sent to the Peninsula, supported the founding of Sandhurst, and established an asylum at Chelsea for soldiers’ orphans. A scandal over his mistress Mary Anne Clarke selling commissions forced him out in 1809, but he was restored in 1811. His marriage to Frederica of Prussia soon broke down, and though heir to George IV from 1820, he died first.

Place in the family

  • Frederick Duke of York was an uncle of Queen Victoria.

One of 35 people of House of Hanover (from 1700) in this archive. Called from Germany by the Act of Settlement; the Georges, then Victoria.

Line of descent: Owen Tudor → Edmund Tudor → King Henry VII → Margaret Tudor → King James V of Scotland → Mary Queen of Scots → King James I → Elizabeth Stuart → Sophia of Hanover → King George I → King George II → Frederick Prince of Wales → King George III → Frederick Duke of York.

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