Dukedoms of the British Isles by reign Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough, the excellent English general of Queen Anne's reign, won many a victory over the French King Louis XIV. He was rewarded with a dukedom, which by a special Act of Parliament passed to his daughters and their descendants when he died without surviving male issue. Created for politician John Manners, 9th Earl of Rutland. He was noted for being one of the first people in England to obtain a divorce, done by special act of Parliament. Like the Dukedom of Cornwall in England, Rothesay is automatically held by the eldest son of the Scottish monarch;
Monarchy of the United Kingdom the Queen granted his request as Heath had already failed to form a coalition. The resulting general election gave Wilson a small majority. The monarch could in theory unilaterally dismiss the prime minister, but in practice the prime minister's term nowadays comes to an end only by electoral defeat, death, or resignation. The last monarch to remove the prime minister was William IV, who dismissed Lord Melbourne in 1834. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 removed the monarch's authority to dissolve Parliament; however the Act specifically retained the monarch's power of "prorogation", which is a regular feature of the parliamentary calendar.