Earl of Forfar
title of Scottish nobility
Earl of Forfar is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Scotland and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The name of the earldom refers to Forfar, the county town of Angus, Scotland. The current holder is Prince Edward, son of Elizabeth II and brother of Charles III.
History
The title was first created in 1661 in the Peerage of Scotland as a subsidiary title to the Earldom of Ormond. This first creation of the title became extinct in 1715.
The dignity of Earl of Forfar in the Peerage of the United Kingdom was granted in 2019 to Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, on the occasion of his 55th birthday. This earldom was given in addition to the two titles (Earl of Wessex and Viscount Severn) that he received on his wedding day and afforded Prince Edward and his wife Sophie a Scottish title to use when in Scotland before Edward was granted the Dukedom of Edinburgh. Unlike his brother (the then Prince Andrew, Earl of Inverness) and nephews (Prince William, Earl of Strathearn and Prince Harry, Earl of Dumbarton), Prince Edward did not receive a Scottish title on the occasion of his marriage.
The County of Forfar, renamed Angus in 1928, contains Glamis Castle, the seat of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne, from whom Prince Edward's grandmother Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was descended.
In July 2019, the Earl and Countess visited Forfar on their first official visit to the town since the Queen granted the title in March 2019. He was presented with 'Earl of Forfar' tartan, to decorate the Earl and Countess, by a town firm – the Strathmore Woollen Company.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q62019364. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1661, 1715, 2019 and 1928.
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This entry incorporates text from “Earl of Forfar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.