Princess Royal
Sign in to saveNoble title customarily awarded by British monarchs to their eldest daughters
Key facts
- Style
- Her Royal Highness
- Residence
- St James's Palace
- Appointer
- Monarch of the United Kingdom
- Term length
- Life tenure or until accession to the throne
- Inaugural holder
- Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange
via Wikipedia infobox
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Princess Royal is a title customarily (but not automatically) awarded by British monarchs to their eldest daughters. Although purely honorary, it is the highest honour that may be given to a female member of the royal family. There have been seven Princesses Royal in history; the title is not inherited, and there can be only one holder of it at any one time. Princess Anne became The Princess Royal in 1987.
The title Princess Royal came into existence when Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), daughter of Henry IV, King of France, and wife of King Charles I (1600–1649), wanted to imitate the way the eldest daughter of the King of France was styled "Madame Royale". Thus, Princess Mary (born 1631), the daughter of Henrietta Maria and Charles, became the first Princess Royal in 1642.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Princess Royal” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.