Prince William has no intention of letting his estranged brother Prince Harry dictate whether his children, Archie and Lilibet, can one day expect to find work and fame by representing the British royal family, or “The Firm,” as the apparatus of working royals is known, according to a new report.
Once he becomes king, William will strip the children, now 6 and 4, of their HRH titles, the Daily Beast’s European editor Tom Sykes reported Friday. HRH stands for His or Her Royal Highness.
Yes, that sounds harsh. But William’s decision on Archie and Lilibet’s titles is reportedly grounded in his concerns that his estranged, California-based brother and sister-in-law, Meghan Markle, have been exploiting their royal connections for commercial gain.
From left, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales, leave after escorting the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II to Westminster Hall from Buckingham Palace for her lying in state on Sept. 14, 2022, in London. (Emilio Morenatti /Getty Images archives)The decision also comes after someone from Harry’s camp apparently leaked a story to The Guardian, saying that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had applied for passports for their children that included the HRH titles in their names. The passports also had the children using the surname Sussex, instead of the more traditional surname, Mountbatten-Windsor.
The Guardian report said that the newspaper “under understands that Prince Harry wants to keep the HRH titles for his children so that when they grow older they can decide for themselves whether they want to become working royals, or stay out of public life.”
But this revelation about Harry’s reported plans for his children’s HRH titles left palace insiders “utterly bewildered,” in part because it came in a left-leaning newspaper that usually doesn’t report on royal news. according to Daily Mail columnist Richard Eden.
“I find this very hard to understand,” one royal source told Eden. “Harry and Meghan apparently found official duties and life within the royal family unbearable, yet they want this for their children. It doesn’t make sense.”
Eden also said Harry’s plans beg the question of whether the Sussexes would try “stage a return to the royal fold via their children,” if they realized that they haven’t become as immensely rich and powerful as they would like on their own.
A friend of Prince William’s told The Daily Beast that this leak to The Guardian is “just trolling on the part of Harry and Meghan.” The friend also said, “William obviously isn’t going to hire Archie and Lilibet.”
Sykes also reported in April that William planned to strip Harry and Meghan of their HRH titles when he becomes king, over concerns that Meghan had violated an agreement with the late Queen Elizabeth II and is using the title for commercial purposes.
HRH is a mostly honorific title that’s granted by the monarch. It doesn’t necessarily confer special powers, perks or responsibilities, but it carries a lot of symbolic weight and prestige. It is usually reserved for children and grandchildren of the monarch, typically senior royals who represent the monarch in an official capacity, CNN has reported.
The HRH title is sometimes extended to the spouses of senior royals, which the queen did for Meghan when she married Harry in 2018. But both Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson lost their HRH titles when they divorced then-Prince Charles and Prince Andrew, respectively.
Sources told the Daily Beast that William settled on stripping Harry and Meghan of the HRH titles, after Meghan recently made it clear that she plans to continue using the title, even after she and Harry told the queen they wouldn’t.
Meghan had been seen publicly brandishing her HRH title in recent promotional efforts related to her personal brand and her As Ever venture in selling jam and other lifestyle products, according to Sykes.
“(King) Charles might be happy to put up with this, but William won’t,” a former courtier told Sykes. “He loathes and despises Harry and Meghan with every bone in his body, he believes they have betrayed everything the family stands for and the idea that they are using their royal status as a calling card will enrage him.”
In Sykes’ new report on HRH titles for Archie and Lilibet, William’s friend said “The idea that somehow having a vestigial HRH as a baby later entitles you to be a working royal is beyond parody, even for (Harry and Meghan).”
“Harry and Meghan were asked by the queen to stop using their HRHs, and agreed,” the friend also said. “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,” the friend continued. “It’s a straightforward betrayal of the deal, and if she now intends to start parading the kids as HRHs to aggrandize herself, it just adds to the case to remove them, legally, altogether.”
Norman Baker, a former government minister who has written extensively on royal and constitutional matters, previously told the Daily Beast that an HRH title is a “gift” of the monarch, which the monarch can take away. “It would basically be the equivalent to an executive order in the U.S.,”Baker said.
When Harry and Meghan decided to leave royal duties in 2020, move to the United States and pursue potentially lucrative media deals and other commercial opportunities, they got to keep their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles.
They also got to keep their HRH titles, but only under an agreement with the late queen that they would never publicly use the titles or refer to themselves as HRH — since they no longer represented her or the British government, according to CNN and the Daily Beast.
Baker said the Sussexes should have been stripped of their HRH titles when they stepped moved to the United States. He told the Daily Beast that it was “a mistake” to not deal with the matter conclusively at the time.
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