European h1 of nobility, the highest rank below a prince or king except in countries having such h1s as archduke or grand duke. The wife of a duke is a duchess. The Romans gave the h1 dux to high military commanders with territorial responsibilities. It was adopted by the barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire and was used in their kingdoms and also in France and Germany for rulers of very large areas. In some European countries a duke is a sovereign prince who rules an independent duchy. In Britain, where there were no ducal h1s until 1337, it is a hereditary h1.

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(born May 1, 1769, Dublin, Ire.—died Sept. 14, 1852, Walmer Castle, Kent, Eng.) British general. Son of the Irish earl of Mornington, he entered the army in 1787 and served in the Irish Parliament (1790–97). Sent to India in 1796, he commanded troops to victories in the Maratha War (1803). Back in England, he served in the British House of Commons and as chief secretary in Ireland (1807–09). Commanding British troops in the Peninsular War, he won battles against the French in Portugal and Spain and invaded France to win the war in 1814, for which he was promoted to field marshal and created a duke. After Napoleon renewed the war against the European powers, the “Iron Duke” commanded the Allied armies to victory at the Battle of Waterloo (1815). Richly rewarded by English and foreign sovereigns, he became one of the most honoured men in Europe. After commanding the army of occupation in France (1815–18) and serving in the Tory cabinet as master general of ordnance (1818–27), he served as prime minister (1828–30), but he was forced to resign after opposing any parliamentary reform. He was honoured on his death by a monumental funeral and burial in St. Paul's Cathedral alongside Horatio Nelson.

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(born Sept. 24, 1583, Herhacekmanice, Bohemia—died Feb. 25, 1634, Eger) Austrian general. A noble of Bohemia, he served with the future Habsburg emperor Ferdinand II in the campaign against Venice in 1617. He remained loyal to Ferdinand when other Bohemian nobles revolted (1618–23) and was made governor of Bohemia and allowed to acquire vast holdings in confiscated estates. Created duke of Friedland (1625), he commanded the imperial armies in the Thirty Years' War. After successes in the war against Denmark (1625–29), he was awarded the principality of Sagan (1627) and the duchy of Mecklenburg (1629). Under pressure from the German princes, Ferdinand was forced to dismiss Wallenstein. Recalled to imperial command in 1631, he drove the Swedish army from Bavaria and Franconia but was defeated at the Battle of Lützen (1632). Believing he had the support of his generals, he mounted a revolt against the emperor (1634) and was assassinated.

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(born 1579, Château of Blain, Brittany, France—died April 13, 1638, Königsfeld, Switz.) French Huguenot leader. At age 16 he entered the army of Henry IV, who made him a peer of France in 1603. After Henry's death (1610), Rohan led the Huguenots in revolt against the government of Marie de Médicis (1615–16) and became the Huguenots' foremost general in the civil wars of the 1620s. He recounted the events of the War of La Rochelle (1627–29) in his celebrated Mémoires. He then went to Venice. After his return to France (1635), he successfully commanded a French expedition against the Habsburgs in Lombardy. In 1637 he went to Switzerland, where he died in the Thirty Years' War battle at Rheinfelden.

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(born June 10, 1921, Corfu, Greece) Husband of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. Son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (1882–1944) and Princess Alice (1885–1969), a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, he was reared in Britain. In World War II he served in combat with the Royal Navy. In 1947 he became a British subject, taking his mother's surname, Mountbatten, and renouncing his right to the Greek and Danish thrones. He married Princess Elizabeth in 1947 and continued on active service in the navy until her accession to the throne in 1952. Charles, prince of Wales, is their son.

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(born Oct. 19, 1610, London, Eng.—died July 21, 1688, Kingston Lacy, Dorset) Anglo-Irish statesman. Born into the prominent Butler family of Ireland, he succeeded to the earldom of Ormonde in 1632. In service to the English crown in Ireland from 1633, he fought against the Catholic rebellion from 1641. He concluded a peace with the Catholic confederacy in 1649, then rallied support for Charles II, but he was forced to flee when Oliver Cromwell landed at Dublin. He was Charles's adviser in exile (1650–60). After the Restoration he was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland (1662–69, 1677–84), where he encouraged Irish commerce and industry. He was created a duke in 1682.

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(born March 20, 1811, Paris, France—died July 22, 1832, Schönbrunn, Austria) The only son of Napoleon and Marie-Louise, he was born during Napoleon's reign as emperor and styled “King of Rome.” On Napoleon's abdication (1814), Marie-Louise took her son to live at the court of her father, Emperor Francis II, rather than allow him to remain in France as the focus of resistance as Napoleon II. Given the Austrian h1 of duke of Reichstadt, he was controlled by Klemens, prince von Metternich. In 1830 Bonapartist insurgents attempted to restore Reichstadt as Napoleon II, but he was already ill with tuberculosis, which would kill him.

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(born March 15, 1493, Chantilly, France—died Nov. 12, 1567, Paris) French soldier and constable of France. Named for his godmother, Queen Anne of Brittany, he served three kings—Francis I, Henry II, and Charles IX—in war and peace. He fought in numerous wars in northern Italy and southern France against Emperor Charles V and in campaigns against the Huguenots. In 1529 he helped negotiate the Peace of Cambrai between France and Charles V. He was created constable of France in 1538, and he became a duke and peer in 1551. Wounded at the Battle of Saint-Denis, he died two days later.

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(born March 1340, Ghent—died Feb. 3, 1399, London, Eng.) English prince, the fourth son of Edward III. John's additional name, “Gaunt” (a corruption of the name of his birthplace, Ghent), was not used after he was three years old; it became the popularly accepted form of his name, however, through its use in William Shakespeare's play Richard II. John served as a commander in the Hundred Years' War against France, then returned to become an important influence in his father's last years as king and in the reign of his nephew Richard II. Through his first wife, John acquired the duchy of Lancaster in 1362, and he was the immediate ancestor of the three 15th-century monarchs of the house of Lancaster: Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI.

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(born Dec. 23, 1856, Durham, N.C., U.S.—died Oct. 10, 1925, New York, N.Y.) U.S. tobacco magnate and philanthropist. He and his brother Benjamin (1855–1929) entered the family tobacco business. In 1890 James became president of the American Tobacco Co., which controlled the entire U.S. tobacco industry until antitrust laws caused it, in 1911, to be broken into several companies that would become the principal U.S. cigarette makers. He oversaw the family's contributions to Trinity College in Durham, which was renamed Duke University.

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Private university in Durham, N.C. It was created in 1924 through an endowment from James B. Duke, although the original college (Trinity) traces its roots to the mid 19th century. Duke maintained separate campuses for undergraduate men and women until the 1970s. Besides an undergraduate liberal arts college, the university includes schools of business, divinity, engineering, environmental studies, graduate studies, law, medicine (including a medical centre), and nursing.

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(born Jan. 30, 1628, London, Eng.—died April 16, 1687, Kirkby Moorside, Yorkshire) English politician. Born eight months before the assassination of his father, the 1st duke of Buckingham, he was brought up with the family of Charles I. He fought for Charles II in the English Civil Wars, and after the Restoration in 1660 Buckingham became a leading member of the king's inner circle of ministers, known as the Cabal. Parliament had him dismissed from his posts for alleged Catholic sympathies in 1674.

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(born June 19, 1896, Blue Ridge Summit, Pa., U.S.—died April 24, 1986, Paris, France) U.S. socialite who became the wife of Prince Edward, duke of Windsor (Edward VIII), after the latter had abdicated the British throne in order to marry her. She had earlier married Earl Spencer in 1916. After their divorce (1927), she married Ernest Simpson (1928) and moved with him to London. As a member of fashionable British society, she met Edward, prince of Wales, and the two gradually fell in love. She filed for divorce in 1936 with the intention of marrying Edward (by then King Edward), but as a woman twice divorced, she was unacceptable as a prospective British queen. Edward renounced the throne, and after she received her divorce they were married in 1937. The two thereafter lived a well-publicized international social life, residing mainly in France.

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(born December 1600—died Aug. 12, 1679, Gagny, France) French princess. She participated in several conspiracies against the ministerial government in Louis XIII's reign and the regency for Louis XIV. She was exiled several times for her activities, including participating in a plot against Cardinal de Richelieu, betraying state secrets to Spain, and plotting to assassinate Jules Mazarin.

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