The titles have traditionally been awarded to junior members of the English and British royal family, and all are now extinct.

The title does not refer to the minor River Clarence in Pas-de-Calais, northern France, but is said by Polydore Vergil to originate[1] from the manor and castle of Clare in Suffolk, the Caput baroniae of a feudal barony, which was held by Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, in right of his wife, the heiress Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster, ultimate descendant and heiress of the previous holder, the de Clare family; Clare was among the many estates which she brought to her husband.

The title was first created for Lionel, a younger son of King Edward III who in 1352 had married Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster, the sole heiress via a female line of Gilbert de Clare, 8th Earl of Gloucester.

The name Clarence referred to the feudal barony of Clare in Suffolk, and as the holder of it (and others) by right of his wife Lionel was given that title.

Includes dukes of: Albany, Albemarle, Bedford, Cambridge, Clarence, Connaught and Strathearn, Cumberland, Edinburgh, Gloucester, Gloucester and Edinburgh, Hereford, Kent, Kintyre and Lorne, Norfolk, Ross, Somerset, Sussex, Windsor, and York, but only when royally.