After the birth of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor in 2019, Prince Harry and Meghan made clear that they had chosen not to use a title for their son.
He could have become the Earl of Dumbarton – one of Harry’s subsidiary titles – or have been Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. But, instead, he was simply Master Archie.
At the time, sycophantic journalists such as Omid Scobie, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s future biographer, gushed that this decision was ‘all part’ of their desire to give their son ‘as normal a life as possible’.
Yet, after moving to the egalitarian US, the couple seemed to have a change of heart.
Instead of seeking a ‘normal’ life for little Archie, they wanted him to be formally known as a prince.
So insistent were they that he deserved a regal title that they whined about it to a worldwide audience of almost 50 million in their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2021.
Meghan suggested to the American chat-show queen that the Palace had denied Archie the title of ‘prince’ and that the decision went against protocol.
She spoke of her shock at being told he would not get police protection because he did not have a title, and suggested that the decision was taken because of his mixed race.
Harry hugs his son Archie as Meghan lifts a baby Lilibet up in the air for their Christmas card picture released in 2021
‘It’s not their right to take away [his title],’ Meghan said.
When Ms Winfrey asked if it was ‘because of his race’, the former actress replied: ‘In those months when I was pregnant… we [had] the conversation of, “He won’t be given security, he’s not going to be given a title”. And, also, concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.’
In fact, the rules governing the titles of royal children were set out by George V – the late Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather – in 1917.
Archie and Lilibet, now aged six and four, were not ‘prince’ and ‘princess’ at birth because they were not grandchildren of the monarch at the time. However, they gained the right to these titles when King Charles acceded to the throne in 2022.
The Sussexes referred to their daughter as ‘Princess Lilibet’ for the first time after her christening in California was announced in 2023.
A spokesman for the couple said: ‘The children’s titles have been a birthright since their grandfather became monarch. This matter has been settled for some time in alignment with Buckingham Palace.’
The children were subsequently named as ‘prince’ and ‘princess’ on the Royal Family’s official website.
Not apparently content with these titles, however, the Sussexes wanted their children to be known as His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness to boot.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave an interview to Oprah Winfrey in 2021, which had a worldwide audience of almost 50 million
Prince Harry with his brother Prince William at the unveiling of a statue at Kensington Palace on what would have been their mother Princess Diana’s 60th birthday in 2021
We know this because a ‘source close to the Duke and Duchess’ informed the Guardian newspaper this month that the couple had applied for British passports for their children and requested that HRH was printed on them.
The source said this was ‘so that when they grow older they can decide for themselves whether they want to become working royals, or stay out of public life’.
The report in the Guardian, a little-read newspaper favoured by Left-wing republicans, failed to attract much attention until I wrote about it in the Daily Mail.
As one friend of the Prince of Wales told the well-connected journalist Tom Sykes, of the US news website Daily Beast: ‘William obviously isn’t going to hire Archie and Lilibet. This is just trolling on the part of Harry and Meghan. It’s actually hilarious that no one even noticed it for ten days, until the Mail did it.’
According to Sykes, my article spurred the heir to the throne into action. ‘Prince William will strip his exiled brother Prince Harry’s children of their HRH titles when he becomes King after a provocative briefing by the exiled royal “flabbergasted” royal insiders,’ he reported.
A source told him: ‘Harry and Meghan were asked by the Queen to stop using their HRHs, and agreed. Obviously, any reasonable person would understand that would mean your kids don’t use them either.
‘The simple fact is that Meghan has gone back on the deal by using her HRH. It’s a straightforward betrayal of the deal, and if she now intends to start parading the kids as HRHs to aggrandise herself, it just adds to the case to remove them, legally, altogether.’
Meghan has denied using HRH for any public purpose, but she used the title on a card accompanying a personal gift.
From what I am told, the removal of Archie and Lilibet’s HRHs could be part of a wider ‘slimming down’ of the monarchy when William becomes King.
He may choose to restrict the use of HRHs to working members of the Royal Family. This would mean that Harry and Meghan, as well as their children, are stripped of these titles.
‘Why on earth are Harry and Meghan so bothered about all these titles?’ a courtier asks me. ‘They are meant to be pursuing a new life in America.’
The official statement released by Buckingham Palace after the pair quit royal duties in 2020 stated: ‘The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family.’
Given that Harry and Meghan agreed to this at the time, it is astonishing that they wish for their children to have something they abandoned themselves.
