noun
definition
The wife or widow of a duke.
definition
The female ruler of a duchy.
verb
definition
To court or curry favour for political or business advantage; to flatter obsequiously.
Examples of duchess in a Sentence
The Duchess of Connaught died in London March 14 1917.
Thus abandoned, and in disgrace at court, the duchess betook herself to religion.
By his beloved consort Ulrica Leonora of Denmark, from the shock of whose death in July 1693 he never recovered, he had seven children, of whom only three survived him, a son Charles, and two daughters, Hedwig Sophia, duchess of Holstein, and Ulrica Leonora, who ultimately succeeded her brother on the Swedish throne.
The duke and duchess represented Queen Victoria at the coronation of the tsar Nicholas II.
In the presence of the rising storm the duchess was bewildered, seeing clearly the folly of the policy she was obliged to carry out no less than its difficulty.
Early in 1490 he took a further step and was betrothed to the duchess, and later in the same year the marriage was celebrated by proxy; but Brittany was still occupied by French troops, and Maximilian was unable to go to the assistance of his bride.
The prince of Orange married the grand duchess Anna Paulowna, sister of Tzar Alexander I.
Expelled from France in 1836, the day after bringing a suit against the duchess of Angouleme for the restitution of the daupnin's private property, he lived in exile till his death at Delft on the 10th of August 1845, and his tomb was inscribed "Louis XVII., roi de France et de Navarre (Charles Louis, duc de Normandie)."
The duchess, herself aggrieved by the dictatorial manners of the cardinal, likewise urged upon her brother the necessity of the retirement of the unpopular minister.
The young duchess died in her seventeenth year after giving birth to a son, and the duke took a second wife from a humble stock, newly enriched and honoured, the daughter of Henry VIII.'s subservient chancellor, the Lord Audley of Walden.
In 1670 she accompanied the duchess of Orleans on a visit to Charles II.
On the morning of June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were shot dead in Sarajevo by nineteen-year-old assassin Gavrilo Princip.
From henceforth to the end of her life Biren's influence over the duchess was paramount.
The magnificence of his plate astonished the French ambassador, and the diamonds of his duchess were the envy of princes.
This countess of Dysart (afterwards duchess of Lauderdale) was a famous beauty of the period, and notorious both for her amours and for her political influence.
The Walpoles, Bubb Dodington, Bolingbroke, Congreve, Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, Pope, were among his English friends.
The duchess was very popular at the court of Louis XIV., and was on good terms with the grand monarch himself; she shared in the knowledge of state secrets, but was soon estranged from her husband, and at the best her conduct was very imprudent.
This seems to be sufficiently attested by the fact that he was greatly liked and esteemed, not only in the pulpit but in private intercourse, by cultivated women like the countess of Biickeburg, the duchess of Weimar and Frau von Stein, and, what perhaps is more, was exceedingly popular among the gymnasium pupils, in whose education he took so lively an interest.
In Walpole's own words, "as St John had the duchess entirely on his side I need not add what must or might in time have been the consequence," and he prepared for his dismissal.
He also acted for a time as chairman of the secret committee of the Commons, and drew up the report on the examination of the Jesuit Coleman, secretary to the duchess of York.
In the end the duchess succeeded in patching up these feuds and saving the dynasty, and in 1648 Charles Emmanuel II.
Messages asking for help were sent to Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., to Sir Thomas Broughton and other Yorkist leaders.
Subsequently, however, he married the handsome and promising youth to Agnes of Chatillon, duchess of Antioch, and in 1173 placed him, by force of arms, on the Hungarian throne, first expelling Bela's younger brother Geza, who was supported by the Catholic party.
It had previously narrowly escaped absorption by Napoleon, who passed through the town during the pursuit of the Prussians after the battle of Jena in 1806, and was only dissuaded from abolishing the duchy by the tact and courage of the duchess Louisa.
The duke and duchess of Kent had been living at Amorbach, in Franconia, owing to their straitened circumstances, but they returned to London on purpose that ?,heir child should be born in England.
The widowed duchess of Kent was now a woman of thirty-four, handsome,, homely, a German at heart, and with little liking for English ways.
Prince Leopold still lived at this time at Claremont, where Princess Charlotte had died, and this became the duchess of Kent's occasional English home; but she was much addicted to travelling, and spent several months every year in visits to watering-places.
Until she became queen she never slept a night away from her mother's room, and she was not allowed to converse with any grown-up person, friend, tutor or servant without the duchess of Kent or the Baroness Lehzen, her private governess, being present.
Louise Lehzen, a native of Coburg, had come to England as governess to the Princess Fecdore of Leiningen, the duchess of Kent's daughter 1 The question of her name, as that of one who was to be queen,.
When both houses had voted loyal addresses, the question of the Civil List was considered, and a week or two later a message was brought to parliament requesting an increase of the grant formerly made to the duchess of Kent.
The duchess of Kent and her brothers, King Leopold and the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had always hoped to arrange that the queen should marry her cousin, Albert of Saxe-CoburgGotha, and the prince himself had been made acquainted with this plan from his earliest years.
The duchess of Kent had communicated her projects to Lord Melbourne, and they were known to many other statesmen, and to persons in society; but the gossip of drawing-rooms during the years 1837-38 continually represented that the young queen had fallen in love with Prince This or Lord That, and the more imaginative babblers hinted at post-chaises waiting outside Kensington Gardens in the night, private marriages and so forth.
The In February 1839 this young lady, a daughter of the "Bed- marquis of Hastings, and a maid of honour to the chamber duchess of Kent, was accused by certain ladies of Plat' the bedchamber of immoral conduct.
Going in state to Ascot the queen was hissed by some ladies as her carriage drove on to the course, and two peeresses, one of them a Tory duchess, were openly accused of this unseemly act.
Princess Alice (afterwards grand duchess of Hesse) was born on the 25th of April 1843; Prince Alfred (afterwards duke of Edinburgh and duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) on the 6th of August 1844; Princess Helena (Princess Christian) on the 25th of May 1846; Princess Louise (duchess of Argyll) on the 18th of March 1848; and Prince Arthur (duke of Connaught) on the 1st of May 1850.
On 16th March, her mother, the duchess of Kent, died, and on 14th December, while the dispute with America about the Trent "affair was yet unsettled, the prince consort breathed his last at Windsor.
A month later (June 23) took place the birth of a son to the duke and duchess of York, the child receiving the thoroughly English name of Edward.
The amiable duke and duchess of Luxembourg, who were his neighbours at Montlouis, made his acquaintance...
Among them the Baden Ladies' Society, founded in 1859 by the Grand Duchess Luise, deserves mention.
In Germany the Albert Nursing Society was founded by Queen Carola of Saxony, and the Alice Society by the Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse, both in 1867.
In 1806 she received the title of duchess of Guastalla.
In 1246 Nicholas obtained a grant of a Saturday market and a fair at the feast of the Assumption (both maintained up to the present day), and in 1275 South Molton appears for the' first time as a mesne borough under his overlordship. The borough subsequently passed to the Audleys, the Hollands, and in 1487 was granted for life to Margaret, duchess of Richmond, who in 1490 obtained a grant of a fair (which is still held) at the nativity of St John the Baptist.
Such was the hatred of the people to the old regime that two influential councillors of Charles the Bold, the Chancellor Hugonet and the Sire d'Humbercourt, having been discovered in correspondence with the French king, were executed at Ghent despite the tears and entreaties of the youthful duchess.
Affairs now went more smoothly in the Netherlands, the French aggression was checked, and internal peace was in a.large measure restored, when the duchess met her death by a fall from her horse on the 27th of March 1482.
This nearly ruined Geneva, which, too, in 1477 had to pay a large indemnity to the Swiss army that, after the defeat of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, advanced to take vengeance on the dominions of his ally, Yolande, dowager duchess of Savoy and sister of Louis XI., as well as on the bishop of Geneva, her brother-in-law.
In 1832 again an abortive insurrection broke out in support of the Bourbons, at the instigation of the duchess of Berry; t1 ?
He entered the Holstein-Gottorp service, and after the death of the duchess Hedwig Sophia, Charles XII.'s sister, became very influential during the minority of her son Duke Charles Frederick.
In England the duchess, who was commonly spoken of as Madam East, was supposed to be an agent of the pope, who had indeed exerted himself to secure her consent.
The duchess of Berry was imprisoned in its fortress in 1832-1833.
In 1640 Richelieu sent him to Savoy, where the regency of Christine, the duchess of Savoy, and sister of Louis XIII., was disputed by her brothers-in-law, the princes Maurice and Thomas of Savoy, and he succeeded not only in firmly establishing Christine but in winning over the princes to France.