Global InformationDuke of Aubigny information
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| Dukedom of Aubigny | |
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| Creation date | 1684 |
| Created by | King Louis XIV of France |
| Peerage | Peerage of France |
| First holder | Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth |
| Present holder | Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond |
| Heir apparent | Charles Gordon-Lennox, Earl of March and Kinrara |
| Seat(s) | Goodwood House in England |
| Former seat(s) | Château d'Aubigny in France |
Duke of Aubigny (French: Duc d'Aubigny) is a title that was created in the Peerage of France in 1684. It was granted by King Louis XIV of France to Louise de Kérouaille, the last mistress of King Charles II of England, and to descend to Charles's illegitimate issue by her, namely to the descendants of Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, 1st Duke of Lennox (1672–1723) of Goodwood House in Sussex. Louis XIV also granted her the Château de la Verrerie, a former secondary seat of the Stewart Seigneurs d'Aubigny, Franco-Scottish cousins of the Stewart monarchs, seated from 1422 to 1672 at the Château d'Aubigny in the parish and manor of Aubigny-sur-Nère in the ancient province of Berry in France.
The ducal title, with accompanying grant of arms and of lands, were an attempt by Charles II to place his youngest illegitimate son into the persona of his much beloved and recently extinct Franco-Scottish cousins, the Stewart Seigneurs d'Aubigny, the last in the male line of whom was Charles Stewart, 3rd Duke of Richmond, 6th Duke of Lennox (1639–1672) of Cobham Hall in Kent and of Richmond House in London.
During the Auld Alliance between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Ancien Régime of France, the Château d'Aubigny had been granted in 1422 by King Charles VII of France to Sir John Stewart of Darnley, 1st Comte d'Évreux, 1st Seigneur de Concressault, 1st Seigneur d'Aubigny (c. 1380–1429), a famous military commander who served as Constable of the Scottish Army in France, supporting the French against the English during the Hundred Years War, and a fourth cousin[1] of King James I of Scotland (reigned 1406 to 1437), the third monarch of the House of Stewart. The Stewarts of Darnley were a junior branch of Stewart of Bonkyll, of Bonkyll Castle in Scotland, descended from Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland (died 1283), whose senior great-grandson was King Robert II of Scotland (1371–1390), the first monarch of the House of Stewart.
King James VI & I of Scotland and England (grandson of Robert II) united the senior royal line of Stewart (represented by his mother Mary, Queen of Scots) with the junior branch of Stewart of Darnley, as his father (Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley) was that family's senior representative, being the son and heir apparent of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox (1516–1571). King James VI & I inherited the title of Earl of Lennox, as nominal 5th Earl, when that title merged into the crown, as had done the Earldom of Richmond in 1485 on the accession to the throne of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, as King Henry VII of England. These titles were re-granted by the Stewart monarchs to their beloved Franco-Scottish cousins, the Stewarts of Aubigny.
- ^ Both were descended from Alexander Stewart, 4th High Steward of Scotland (d.1283)