CONTINUING the royal theme, a fortnight ago we dawdled in Brunswick Street in Darlington (or Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, York, South Shields or Whitby for that matter) and puzzled over how it got its Germanic name.

Martin Snape, in Durham, adds to our theories by pointing out that in 1714, Queen Anne’s death meant the end of the House of Stuart.

Her closest Protestant relative – there were more than 50 closer Catholic relatives but they didn’t count – was George, the Duke of Brunswick- Luneburg and head of the House of Hanover.

He became George I and so Brunswick became part of the Royal appellation.

There are plenty of other possibilities, though.

For instance, only last week, The Times newspaper lost a two-year libel battle in the European Court of Human Rights.

The paper was seeking to prove that the internet had rendered obsolete “the Duke of Brunswick Ruling” of 1850.

The Duke was very autocratic. He was dissolute, paranoid and obsessive. He collected rare diamonds, had the crown jewels embroidered onto his underpants and was a keen chess player. He had a heavily painted face, a jet black wig, and he was enormously corpulent due to his love of sweets.

In September 1830 – just as Brunswick Street in Darlington was being developed – the people of Brunswick booted him out.

He lived the rest of his life in luxurious exile.

In 1848, he sent his manservant from Paris to the British Library in London to get a copy of the Weekly Dispatch from September 1830.

He read the paper’s report of his overthrow and was so outraged that he successfully sued for damages – even though the report was 18 years old.

All of that wrapped up in a single street name.