The Duchy lf Lancaster

As if being King or Queen of a country isn't enough, many monarchs have lesser titles that only appear in a full list of their official designation.  Thus, Elizabeth the II, by the Grace of God Queen of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland...and of all her other realms and territories queen, is also Duke of Lancaster.  Not Duchess.  Duke.  The Queen holds the estates pertaining to the Duchy of Lancaster as separate from the Crown Estates and they provide a substantial portion of her income.

So, how did this happen?  During the Anarchy, 1135-1154, the Norman family which held what would become Lancaster Castle and its attendant properties was loyal to King Stephen and remained so even after it was decided that Matilda's son Henry would succeed Stephen as king.  Soon after he began ruling as King, Henry II confiscated Lancaster Castle and its vast estates as royal property.  Rather than slighting the castle by destroying it, he remodeled it and later gave his younger son John the rights to the property to keep John pacified.  Richard also confirmed the rights to the property to John, but he wasn't named Duke of Lancaster.  The Duchy remained part of the crown estates in general and several Plantagenet princes were named Earl of Lancaster.  However, in 1351, Edward III made the last Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster, Henry of Grossmont, Duke of Lancaster, granting him also the estates of the Duchy.  Henry also received several other lesser titles.

Henry died and his only heir was a daughter, Blanche of Lancaster, the first wife of John of Gaunt.  John was Edward III's son and so the old man stepped in again in 1362 and created his son Duke of Lancaster.  It's from John of Gaunt's tenure as Duke of Lancaster that the designation for the red rose faction of the Wars of the Roses, the Lancastrians, takes its name.  John's son, Henry of Bolingbroke, inherited the title but didn't use it.  He had a grander title as Henry IV, King of England.  Once again the Lancastrian estates had merged with the crown.  Henry recreated the dukedom a third time in 1399 for his son and heir, the future Henry V, who was Prince of Wales and Duke of Lancaster until he succeeded to the throne.  Then, Henry did something different with the inheritance to the Duchy of Lancaster.  He recreated it as the Honor of Lancaster and designated it as a property held by the sovereign as Duke of Lancaster in addition to the rest of the crown estates.  Why he did this isn't clear, but it did allow for the incomes of the Duchy to be at the sovereign's personal disposal, rather than voted through Parliament or raised through extra taxation. 

Thus, every monarch of England since Henry V has been, in addition to King or Queen of England, Ireland, etc., also Duke of Lancaster.  The use of the male title Duke indicates that the sovereign holds the title in his or her own right, not married to or as heir of a previous duke.  In Lancashire, the Queen is more commonly referred to as the Duke of Lancaster.  The appropriate toast at parties is, the Queen, the Duke of Lancaster.  Lancaster Castle functions today as a crown court, having been closed as a prison.  The incomes from its vast estate provide much of the monarch's personal wealth and disposable income.