BLAZON OF ARMS:
SHIELD: Quarterly:
1st and 4th Gules three lions passant gardant in pale Or (for England )
2nd Or a lion rampant within a double tressure flory counter flory Gules (for Scotland)
3rd Azure a harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland)
The whole surmounted of a label, of five lappets, Argent,
the lappets are charged alternately with crosses Gules and thistles slipped and leaved proper, ( for Princess Alexandra Victoria Edwina Louise (1891-1959)
Overall an inescutcheon
Quarterly:
1st and 4th Or a lion rampant Gules (for Fife)
2nd and 3rd Vert a fess dancetty Ermine between a hart’s head cabossed in chief and two escallops in base all Or, (for Duff)
The inescutcheon ensigned with a duke’s coronet proper.
SOURCE, NOTES & CREDITS: The 2nd Duchess of Fife had more complex arms than the 1st Duke. The text is adapted from the Wikipedia article as is the image used for back ground information. We thank John H. Gaylor for the blazon. Note too, that the Dukedom of Fife was the very last non-royal dukedom created in the United Kingdom. The coronet ensigning the inescutcheon should be described as a duke’s to avoid ambiguity with a “ducal coronet”, which is often/usually used to blazon coronets with four (three visible) strawberry leaves.
We have not used the Princess’s royal coronet above her arms as they are being displayed here in her role as 2nd Duchess of Fife.
Princess Alexandra Victoria Edwina Louise, 2nd Duchess of Fife (1891-1959) was the elder daughter of the 1st Duke of Fife and Louise, Princess Royal, herself the daughter of the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) and Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
On 15 October 1913, the 2nd Duchess of Fife married Prince Arthur of Connaught, the only son of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and thus a younger brother of her maternal grandfather King Edward VII. As such, Arthur and Alexandra were first cousins once removed. Their only son, Alastair, died in 1943.
When the 2nd Duchess of Fife died in 1959, her hereditary peerages passed to her nephew James Carnegie (1929–2015), eldest son of her sister Maud and her husband Charles Carnegie, 11th Earl of Southesk (1893–1992). Thirty-three years later, in 1992, The 3rd Duke of Fife also succeeded his father as 12th Earl of Southesk and chief of the Clan Carnegie.
See the forthcoming entry for the 3rd Duke of Fife when it is uploaded.
The artwork is an interpretation of John Hamilton Gaylor
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