Royal Highnesses: the rules on princely status
sir – In your report (January 6) on the pregnancy of Mrs Mike Tindall you suggest that her mother, HRH the Princess Royal, “eschewed HRH status for her children when they were born”. However, her children were not HRHS by right.
In 1917 King George V issued Letters Patent clarifying the rules. These automatically made the children of the sovereign HRHS, and of princely status, as well as any grandchildren in the male line.
Children of female line descendants got nothing. Often such children would get a courtesy title as a result of their mothers marrying peers or husbands who received peerages upon marriage – as did Princess Margaret’s husband, the Earl of Snowdon.
It has been suggested that Princess Anne and her first husband turned down such an offer. Hence their two children, Mrs Tindall and Mr Peter Phillips, remain untitled. David Pearson
Haworth, West Yorkshire