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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were hosted by Oprah Winfrey in an interview that was filled with a number of claims, one of them touching on the couple’s son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
Meghan said that while she was pregnant with Archie, there were concerns about her baby’s skin colour and whether the baby would get a royal title.
“They were saying they didn’t want him to be a prince or princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol,” Meghan said as she implied that this was a case of “the first member of colour in this family not being titled in the same way that other grandchildren would be.”
Despite being a great-grandchild of Her Majesty the Queen, baby Archie doesn’t have a royal title.
The rules about titles in the royal family, such as Prince and princess, come from a letter patent – legal instrument in the form of an open letter from the monarch – issued in 1917 by King George V.
In this letter, King George V limited royal titles to the children of the monarch, children of the monarch’s sons and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales – in this case Prince William’s son, Prince George.
However, the Queen has the power to amend the rules and in 2012 she decreed that all the children of Prince William would be princes and princesses and not just the eldest. That is why Prince George’s siblings, Charlotte and Louis, also have titles as princess and prince respectively.
In total, Queen Elizabeth II has nine great-grandchildren and they are all not princes and princesses apart from the three children of Prince William who is the second in line to the throne and is destined to be King one day.
When remarking, Meghan seemed to be aware of the letter patent issued by King George V but she pointed out that she had been told that “they wanted to change the convention for Archie” so that he would not become a prince.
There are a number of rules about who receives titles within the royal family but the head of the family, the monarchs, are known for turning these rules down from time to time.
The monarch traditionally hands out new titles on wedding days and Archie’s parents got their titles His and Her Royal Highness the Duke and Duchess of Sussex from Queen Elizabeth II when they married on May 19, 2018.
Without the monarch’s intervention, Meghan would have simply picked up a feminized styling of her husband’s official name and become Her Royal Highness Princess Henry of Wales (Henry connotes Harry).
Despite the titles of his parents, baby Archie doesn’t get the same treatment and he is simply Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
According to William Bortrick, a peerage expert, Prince Harry and Meghan could have called their son the Earl of Dumbarton but they apparently decided against it. Earl of Dumbarton is Prince Harry’s secondary title used in Scotland.
If Prince Charles becomes King, Archie’s parents can choose to call him Prince Archie, as permitted under King George V letter patent – royal titles are only permitted amongst the grandchildren of the monarch.
Duchess Meghan
According to royal dictates, princes and princesses only descend from royal blood, which is why Kate Middleton, born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton, isn’t referred to as Princess Kate but the female form of her husband’s title – Princess William of Wales.
You can only carry prince or princess before your name if you were born in the role and the same rule applies to Duchess.
This means that Duchess Catherine or Duchess Meghan are not official titles and they can be stripped of the titles when they exit the royal family. Prince Harry and Prince William, their spouses, however, will use royal titles their entire lives, unless they become King.
A fun fact, despite “Princess Diana” being popular, it wasn’t official. When Diana (Prince William and Prince Harry’s mother) married Prince Charles, her name was Diana, Princess of Wales. When she divorced Charles, the Queen ordered her stripped of the royal title.
For Kate, she will only be Her Royal Highness Catherine, Princess of Wales when Prince William becomes the Prince of Wales after his father moves on to take the throne. Once Prince William becomes King, Kate will become Her Majesty Queen Consort Catherine VI.
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