Prince William could formally strip Prince Harry and Meghan Markle of their “HRH” titles when he becomes king, sources have told the Daily Beast.
Meghan appeared to reassert her and Harry’s titles in an Instagram post at the weekend, reposting a message from the vice president of Ukraine addressing her as “Your Royal Highness.”
The couple agreed not to use their “His/Her Royal Highness” (HRH) titles when they left the royal family, but they were never formally stripped of them. A similar compromise was extracted from Prince Andrew when he was kicked out of the ranks of the official working family after being accused of sexual abuse. He has since sometimes used the title.
William’s hardline position contrasts with a relaxed attitude from King Charles, who, one friend said, would not want “to open a new front in the civil war” between the royals and Harry and Meghan.
For now, friends of William say, he will “respect his father’s rank” and follow his lead, but they say that when William becomes king, Harry and Meghan could be “more harshly dealt with.”
One friend of William told the Daily Beast, “William has been given a great deal of influence on all areas of royal policy, but that cuts both ways and he respects his father’s rank. Charles has a softly-softly attitude to Harry and Meghan, and so that’s the policy for now, but the gloves will be off when he inherits the throne. If they started using the HRH titles on a regular basis, he would take them away for good.”
Another friend of William’s added, “It’s no secret William wants Harry more harshly dealt with. He thinks he has betrayed the family from top to bottom, which is the ultimate Windsor crime. It wouldn’t take much to provoke him to flex his muscles when he is king.”
The friend of the king said, “Charles isn’t going to open a new front in the civil war on the basis of one Instagram post, and it’s not as if they are calling themselves HRH. I think everyone is pretty clear, at this stage, what the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s position in the family is.”
Others would argue that their position is far from clear, especially to casual users of social media around the world who simply view Harry and Meghan as royals, despite the tenuous deal hammered out at the so-called Sandringham Summit after the left the family which saw them agree to not market their royal connections and not use their HRH titles.
There have been many calls in the U.K. for the couple to be stripped of their titles, including parliamentary bills (none of which have been successful.)
Markle’s decision to publish a letter from Ukraine’s vice president on Instagram using the HRH greeting this weekend has re-opened the controversy. The message from Yulia Svyrydenko began, “Your Royal Highness, I would like to express my sincere thanks for everything your family is doing for Ukraine.”
Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have declined to comment.
A friend of the king told the Daily Beast last weekend, “It’s outrageous. Every time you think they can’t make it worse, they make it worse. The deal with the HRH was a way to stop them cashing in while letting them walk away with pride and dignity and trust, and now Markle is using her HRH on a website which seems to exist to sell jam.”
A friend of Prince William’s told the Daily Beast, “It’s actually quite a clever way of testing the water, because there is deniability there, she can say, ‘Well, I just wanted to publish this nice letter to raise awareness for Ukraine, and oops! they got my name wrong—but oh, actually, now I think of it, I never gave the title up anyway, and maybe I will start using it again.‘”
“It’s a step in the wrong direction, basically, away from the agreement,” the friend added. “You’d have to be an idiot to believe that she didn’t know exactly what she was doing when she posted that message, unedited, to her stories.”
An expert in heraldry who knows the family recently told the Daily Beast, “There were plenty of people at the time who said it was a mistake to make not using the title a mere gentleman’s agreement rather than just removing it. This post may not matter in and of itself, but it raises a bigger question: What are they going to do if she simply starts using her HRH again? She probably can’t be stopped as things stand right now. The bottom line is, she is, officially, an HRH. It was never removed.”
Harry and Meghan’s office have not responded to queries from the Daily Beast asking about the post. The king’s office and William’s office also did not respond to requests for comment.
The post Meghan and Harry Could Be Stripped of HRH Titles By a Vengeful King William appeared first on The Daily Beast.
