Duke & Duchess of Cambridge (Image courtesy the Royal Monarchy's Flickr page)
John Churchill (1650-1722) was created Duke of Marlborough by Queen Anne in 1702 for many important military victories and years of service to the crown. He was further rewarded with Blenheim Palace at Woodstock, one of the largest estates in the United Kingdom. The Marlborough title is one of the most enduring and includes several connections to Newport including the celebrated marriage of the ninth Duke of Marlborough to Consuelo Vanderbilt of Marble House in 1895. Other connections to Newport include the following:
Prime Minister Winston Spencer Churchill was the grandson of the seventh Duke of Marlborough and would have inherited the title if his uncle failed to have children by Consuelo Vanderbilt. Winston’s American mother Jennie was the daughter of Leonard Jerome and Clarissa Hall of New York. The Jeromes briefly summered in Newport on Marine Avenue in the 1860s until the death of their young daughter Camille forced them to sell their house out of grief. Clarissa Hall Jerome was eighth in descent from Philip Sherman (1610-1687) an original settler of Portsmouth, RI in 1638.
Prince William of Wales, the newly married Duke of Cambridge, descends from the first Duke of Marlborough through the Earls of Sunderland and Spencer through his one-eighth American mother Diana. Prince William also descends from Frank Work, New York financier and owner of Elm Court on Bellevue Avenue