Now they’ve decided to call Lilibet a princess
After spurning Royal Family, Sussexes hold home christening, and...
HARRY and Meghan have adopted royal titles for their son and daughter, who will now be called Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
The couple revealed yesterday that they have begun to use the titles the children automatically inherited when their grandfather, king charles, acceded to the throne.
It comes despite their repeated attacks on both the institution of the monarchy and members of the Royal Family. Until now the children had been referred to as plain Master and Miss on the Buckingham Palace website. That will now be updated, the palace said.
It is understood there has been correspondence on the issue between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and royal aides.
But there was no announcement until yesterday, when Harry and Meghan revealed that their 21month-old daughter, whom they referred to as Princess Lilibet Diana, had been baptised at their £11million california home.
The couple’s spokesman said: ‘I can confirm that Princess Lilibet Diana was christened on Friday, March 3, by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, the Rev John Taylor.’
US entertainment magazine People claimed that the couple had invited the king, Queen consort and the Prince and Princess of Wales to the service.
There were between 20 and 30 guests, including Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland and the billionaire US entertainment mogul Tyler Perry, who was asked to be Lili’s godfather and apparently organised a gospel choir.
While the couple announced that Lili was baptised by ‘the Archbishop of Los Angeles’, the Right Rev John Harvey Taylor is actually the Bishop of LA. A former newspaper reporter, he was Richard nixon’s chief of staff after he resigned as US president following the Watergate scandal.
It is understood the children’s titles will be used in formal settings, but not in ‘everyday conversational
‘Obsessed they wouldn’t get titles’
use’ by the couple, and this was the first opportunity to do so since the Queen’s death.
Archie, three, and Lilibet were entitled to be called prince and princess following their grandfather’s accession to the throne.
In 1917 george V issued ‘letters patent’ – written legal wishes – which conferred the title of prince or princess on male-line grandchildren of the sovereign. Archie and Lilibet did not have the titles at birth as they were great-grandchilden of the then monarch.
That changed when Elizabeth II died in September and charles became king. Ordinarily they would also be entitled to use HRH – His or Her Royal Highness – but that comes through their father and as Harry’s HRH title is in abeyance, after he and Meghan acrimoniously quit royal duties, his children cannot use it either.
It is understood that the couple, who decided not to give Archie and Lilibet courtesy titles at birth, have been ‘obsessed’ with the idea that the king might bar the children from being prince or princess, although royal sources say charles would never have ‘punished’ his grandchildren that way.
tHe head of Whitehall’s trade union has had a fit of the vapours after an email in the Home Secretary’s name accused a ‘blob of Left-wing civil servants’ of thwarting her crackdown on illegal immigration.
this, said Dave Penman, was a ‘cowardly’ attack on their impartiality.
But isn’t she right? For Home Office staff have ganged up on Mrs Braverman to condemn her asylum policy because it doesn’t conform to their own woke views.
As top mandarin Sue Gray unashamedly plans to become Labour’s chief of staff, don’t these antics shine a light on how antitory activists have infiltrated Whitehall? ÷ WitH mounting concern that Britain has become a ‘ low- growth, lowproductivity, low-wage economy’, Jeremy Hunt plans to use the Budget to hand firms tax breaks on investment to revive our fortunes. true, it saddles them with red tape but is still welcome. But when most businesses want to plough money into a venture, they look at the headline tax rate – another reason the chancellor must ditch catastrophic plans to hike corporation tax. ÷ HOW extraordinary that despite apparently loathing the institution of monarchy, Harry and Meghan have adopted the royal titles for their two children that became available when charles became King. Yes, the Sussexes risk accusations of hypocrisy. But it’ll be lucrative to have Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet in tow.