noble_family prince edward
Duke of York and Albany was a title of nobility in the Peerage of Great Britain . In the 18th century it was , when granted , usually given to the second son of British monarchs . The predecessor titles in the English and Scottish peerage were Duke of York and Duke of Albany . The ___MASK20___ ( or the Hanoverians ) is a German royal dynasty that ruled the Electorate and then the Kingdom of Hanover , and that also provided monarchs of Great Britain and Ireland from 1714 and ruled the United Kingdom until the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 . Upon Victoria ' s death , the British throne passed to her eldest son Edward VII , a member of the House of Saxe - Coburg and Gotha through his father . The ___MASK20___ was formally named the House of Brunswick - Lüneburg , Hanover line , as it was originally a cadet branch of the House of Brunswick - Lüneburg . The senior branch became extinct in 1884 , and the ___MASK20___ is now the only surviving branch of the House of Welf , which is the senior branch of the House of Este . The current head of the ___MASK20___ is Ernst August , Prince of Hanover . Prince Edward , Duke of York and Albany KG PC FRS ( Edward Augustus ; 25 March 1739 -- 17 September 1767 ) , was the younger brother of George III of the United Kingdom , the second son of Frederick , Prince of Wales , and Princess Augusta of Saxe - Gotha . George III ( George William Frederick ; 4 June 1738  29 January 1820 ) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two countries on 1 January 1801 , after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death . He was concurrently Duke and prince - elector of Brunswick - Lüneburg (" Hanover ") in the Holy Roman Empire until his promotion to King of Hanover on 12 October 1814 . He was the third British monarch of the ___MASK20___ , but unlike his two predecessors he was born in Britain , spoke English as his first language , and never visited Hanover . Duke of Albany was a peerage title that has occasionally been bestowed on the younger sons in the Scottish and later the ___MASK71___ , particularly in the Houses of Stuart and Windsor .