On Saturday 27 July 1889, Lord Fife married Princess Louise, the eldest daughter of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales, at the Private Chapel at Buckingham Palace. The couple were third cousins in descent from George III. The wedding marked the second time a descendant of Queen Victoria married a British subject. On the day of the wedding, the Queen elevated Lord Fife to the further dignity of Duke of Fife and Marquess of Macduff, in the County of Banff, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The marriage of the Duke of Fife and Princess Louise produced three children:
In December 1911, while sailing to Egypt on the SS Delhi, the Duke and his family were shipwrecked off the coast of Morocco. They spent some time in the water before being rescued and then had to walk four miles to find accommodation. Although they all survived, the Duke fell ill with pleurisy, probably contracted as a result of the shipwreck. He died at Aswan in Egypt on 29 January 1912, and his elder daughter, Princess Alexandra, succeeded to the dukedom of 1900, becoming Duchess of Fife and Countess of Macduff. His other titles, including the dukedom created in 1889, all became extinct. The Duke's body was brought home to Great Britain by sea, in a lead coffin. It rested in the Royal Vault below St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, from 28 February 1912 until 6 August 1912, when it was transferred to Scotland for burial in St Ninian's Chapel at Mar Lodge, Braemar, Aberdeenshire. The Glasgow Herald reported:
Titles and honours
The Duke of Fife received a new patent as Duke of Fife and Earl of Macduff in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in April 1900, with special remainder to his daughters by Princess Louise and their heirs male. The result was that he held two dukedoms of Fife; the 1889 creation would become extinct in the absence of a son and the 1900 creation would devolve upon his elder daughter in the absence of a son. In November 1905, his father-in-law, now King Edward VII, bestowed the title Princess Royal on the Duchess of Fife and declared that Lady Alexandra Duff and Lady Maud Duff should henceforth hold the title of Princess of Great Britain and Ireland with the style Highness. Queen Victoria created the future Duke of Fife a Knight of the Thistle; George V created him an Extra Knight of the Garter. He was also sworn a Privy Counsellor in 1880. At the coronation of his father-in-law, King Edward VII, in August 1902, and again at his brother-in-law King George V's coronation in June 1911, the Duke of Fife acted as Lord High Constable. In addition to his London residence, 15 Portman Square, the Duke owned two estates in Scotland: Mar Lodge, Aberdeenshire, and Mountcoffer House, Banff.
