To wonder why Harry doesn't drop his titles now he's free of The Firm

[CateTown]

He and Meghan wanted the freedom to earn their own money and good luck to them there. He's confirmed two new roles and his new employers are introducing him as "Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex".

For his self respect, why doesn't he ask to be called Harry Wales or Harry Mountbatten Windsor. Then he'd know he's being hired for his skills rather than being used for his royal connections.

@ApplesPearsAndCrumble you are most welcome

I definitely agree that updating the titles draws attention to them, but I'm not sure that there's any way of completely avoiding the topic - for example if the Queen hadn't issued a Letters Patent for Prince William's children, and Charlotte had been born before George, we would have had the odd situation where the heir to the throne is 'Lady Charlotte Mountbatten-Windsor', but her more junior brother is 'HRH Prince George'. George V's Letters Patent worked perfectly well in 1917 but he never envisaged a world where women would have equal rights of succession with men.

On a slight tangent - I've just worked out that if George V hadn't issued his Letters Patent in 1917 we'd currently have 9 great-grandchildren of the monarch, all entitled to be known as HH Prince/Princess of Great Britain. One is Archie, whom of course we all know, but the others are all the children of the Duke of Kent, Duke of Gloucester and Prince Michael of Kent. Very few people know who the Dukes are nowadays, let alone their descendants!

Yes...I think people are confused because they are thinking of Archie in relation to his connection to William, when they should be thinking of him in relation to the Queen.

It makes sense that we commoners might not realise this but I can't understand how Meghan doesn't. Didn't Harry explain this?

I'd be panicking that I wasn't equal to the job and would barely sleep at night for fear of being found out that I wasn't.

Surely the point is that there is no job, as such? e.g. BetterUp is pre-flotation. They take his title, attached to the brand and it floats at a higher $ than without it.

They then take the extra $ and split it with Harry.

It's not a 9-5, it's a loan of his 'brand' to help elevate their own to a higher stock value. He gets a cut as a result.

DrSbaitso it's a good question. The possibilities in my mind are:

1. Harry doesn't understand this and has not explained it to Meghan, because he can't.

2. Harry does understand this, but thinks an exception should be made for him, because he is Harry. He has fed this back to Meghan and they now both think they should be treated as a special case.

In either case it does all come back to Harry rather than Meghan in my opinion.

Katherine - is it true that Prince Edward's children are entitled to be styled Prince and Princess?

Will Archie and his sister get titles when Charles becomes king?

Why do people keep repeating this weird lie?

Under current law, Archie would be entitled to become a prince automatically the moment his grandfather was crowned King. Comparing him to random people whose grandparents are not soon going to be crowned Monarch is irrelevant.

The next monarch only has four (soon to be five) grandchildren and all grandchildren of the King should be treated equally in law.

The whole scandal over Archie's title is that the RF planned to change the law so that Archie would be denied his legal right to a FUTURE title as King's Grandson.

Nothing to do with him being made prince or not being made prince at his birth. But whether he became prince or not in the future.

You can froth all you like, but the fact is ALL monarch's grandchildren are automatically entitled to be Prince or Princess. As the (soon to be) king's grandson, Archie is entitled to be Prince Archie and legally will be Prince Archie as soon as the Queen passes, unless the RF go through with their threat to change the law to exclude him.

@rosetylersbiggun

Why do people keep repeating this weird lie?

Under current law, Archie would be entitled to become a prince automatically the moment his grandfather was crowned King. Comparing him to random people whose grandparents are not soon going to be crowned Monarch is irrelevant.

The next monarch only has four (soon to be five) grandchildren and all grandchildren of the King should be treated equally in law.

The whole scandal over Archie's title is that the RF planned to change the law so that Archie would be denied his legal right to a FUTURE title as King's Grandson.

Nothing to do with him being made prince or not being made prince at his birth. But whether he became prince or not in the future.

You can froth all you like, but the fact is ALL monarch's grandchildren are automatically entitled to be Prince or Princess. As the (soon to be) king's grandson, Archie is entitled to be Prince Archie and legally will be Prince Archie as soon as the Queen passes, unless the RF go through with their threat to change the law to exclude him.

The whole scandal over Archie's title is that the RF planned to change the law so that Archie would be denied his legal right to a FUTURE title as King's Grandson.

Other than the Orprah interview that was full of lies, where is your evidence of this?

You can froth all you like

No one's frothing - we're having a chat.

I don’t think they should be excluding Archie.

However if his mama and papa choose to walk away from the institution/family/their job and find it such a poisonous and toxic environment, it beggars belief that they’d want their child/children shackled to it even if only by title.

If people don’t want to be part of their family firm then all power to their sword. But you need to walk away entirely.

Joe Bloggs might walk away from his dad’s sock factory to live his own life. That doesn’t mean he gets to object when his dad takes the ‘& son’ down from the signage, stops his wages and bars him entrance to the hall of fame of socks.

The whole scandal over Archie's title is that the RF planned to change the law so that Archie would be denied his legal right to a FUTURE title as King's Grandson.

Nothing to do with him being made prince or not being made prince at his birth. But whether he became prince or not in the future.

You can froth all you like, but the fact is ALL monarch's grandchildren are automatically entitled to be Prince or Princess. As the (soon to be) king's grandson, Archie is entitled to be Prince Archie and legally will be Prince Archie as soon as the Queen passes, unless the RF go through with their threat to change the law to exclude him.

While I'm sure it suited H&M to spin this narrative, this is merely what other European royal families have done recently, and were widely praised for their foresight in doing so. The King of Sweden has stripped five of his grandchildren of their titles. The public appetite for supporting and paying deference to these extended families has waned significantly. At some point these grandchildren of the monarch will become mere cousins of the monarch, and of little significance to 99% of the public.

So, in other words, it's not a scandal. If the BRF were to decide to follow Carl Gustav of Sweden's example, and remove titles from the likes of Beatrice, Eugenie, etc, there would be overwhelming support from the British public.

@rosetylersbiggun

Why do people keep repeating this weird lie?

Under current law, Archie would be entitled to become a prince automatically the moment his grandfather was crowned King. Comparing him to random people whose grandparents are not soon going to be crowned Monarch is irrelevant.

The next monarch only has four (soon to be five) grandchildren and all grandchildren of the King should be treated equally in law.

The whole scandal over Archie's title is that the RF planned to change the law so that Archie would be denied his legal right to a FUTURE title as King's Grandson.

Nothing to do with him being made prince or not being made prince at his birth. But whether he became prince or not in the future.

You can froth all you like, but the fact is ALL monarch's grandchildren are automatically entitled to be Prince or Princess. As the (soon to be) king's grandson, Archie is entitled to be Prince Archie and legally will be Prince Archie as soon as the Queen passes, unless the RF go through with their threat to change the law to exclude him.

Because it’s NOT ‘weird’ and it’s NOT a lie. I can’t understand how people fail to see this.

Yes, Archie will be entitled to be a Prince once Charles is King. No ‘frothing’ involved. That hasn’t happened yet. It may never happen if the Queen outlives him.

As for the Royal Family’s ‘threat’ to ‘deny Archie his legal right’:

A) No one, other than Meghan Markle, has suggested this ‘threat’ has been made. Even SHE said she thinks that’s the plan. If the only person who’s even suggested it might happen isn’t sure, I’d take it with a massive pinch of salt until somehow who actually has power over the decision makes a statement.

B) The ‘random people’ you refer to have, at present, the same rights as Archie to a title. Why aren’t you ‘frothing’ that George V took away their so-called legal rights with his Letters Patent, limiting the titles to male-line grandchildren?

C) Archie’s ‘right’ to a title is not a legal one; it is a result of the above-referenced Letters Patent from a sovereign. If Charles says Archie can’t be a Prince, he will use the same process to limit titles. If one sovereign can limit the entitlement to titles, so can another. You’re basically arguing that it would be illegal for a living sovereign to issue a Letters Patent that overrides one issued by a dead one. It’s laughable.

@ rosetylersbiggun.
The whole scandal over Archie's title is that the RF planned to change the law so that Archie would be denied his legal right to a FUTURE title as King's Grandson.

Apart from the OW interview , has this ever been stated - or even hinted it- in public ? It’s well known that POW wants to slim down the RF but I always understood that H and his family would be included in the slimmed down version .
If I remember correctly there was an occasion a few years ago when the only people on the Balcony were HM, PP , C, C W. C and H . They were dubbed the Magnificent Seven !

Harry just comes across as a dumb petulant child with more chips (on his shoulder) than a casino.

CateTown

1. Yes Prince Edward's children are entitled to HRH + Prince/Princess - there used to be a debate amongst royal watchers whether this was the case. The Queen issued a statement in 1999 that Edward and Sophie's children would only use courtesy titles as the children of an Earl but she didn't issue a Letters Patent to accompany this. There was a debate as to whether a press statement was sufficient to remove the titles they were legally entitled to without a Letters Patent. Sophie Wessex conclusively settled this in an interview when she said that her children were entitled to HRH, and could in theory decide to use these when they turn 18, although this is incredibly unlikely. So they are legally HRH Princess Louise of Wessex, who chooses to be known as Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, and HRH Prince James of Wessex, who chooses to be known as Viscount Severn.

2. I wrote a long post on this on a deleted thread. As things stand now, Archie will automatically become HRH Prince Archie under George V's Letters Patent when the Queen dies and Prince Charles becomes King. After the storm of negative publicity in the Diana years, the Royal Family started to give out signals that they are slimming down and moving away from all grandchildren of the monarch having HRH. This is why Prince Andrew's children (born in 1988 and 1990) have HRH but Prince Edward's (born in 2003 and 2007) don't. As a result there has been a bit of uncertainty as to whether Archie would use his title when the time comes. A lot of royal historians have been expecting Prince Charles to amend George V's rules when he becomes King to limit the HRH title since the Queen issued her statement in 1999, so long before Meghan came on the scene. I think the interesting question is what Charles will do now that Meghan has publicly linked this to race, and whether he will backtrack to try and avoid accusations that the slimming down is based on racism. No easy answers on this one.

It might be worth saying that titles were available to Archie under George V. He could have been known as Lord Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, or the Earl of Dumbarton, but Harry and Meghan decided against both of these.

I can see there has been a lot of posts since I started typing - I'll just also add that the reality is that Archie (great-grandchild of The Queen) is currently in the same position of Lord Frederick Windsor (great-grandchild of George V) - so the comparison is perfectly valid.

All the monarch’s grandchildren aren’t entitled to be prince or princess, only those of male blood royals. Princess Anne’s children couldn’t have been prince and princess because of sexist rules. They could have had other titles as the Queen offered Mark Phillips a title when he married Anne but he refused it. They didn’t want their children to have titles.

I think the Queen could have given Beatrice and Eugenie’s husbands titles but she didn’t.

Archie when older would be the equivalent of B and E or Princess Margaret’s children. He’s not nearly as important within the RF as H and M seem to think.

Charles has been talking for years about slimming down the monarchy when he ascends to the throne. I thought this was the reason why Archie isn't likely to become a prince; because Charles has always planned to reduce it to the direct line of succession, and has been saying so since long before Harry met Meghan.

The Queen has ten great grandchildren now, Zara had a baby boy a few days ago. Born on the bathroom floor.

Sorry, cross posted with @KatherineParr's obviously much better post.

He wants it every which way. He wants to use his royal connections to get jobs but doesn’t actually want to be royal. It’s ridiculous really because if he were plain fred bloggs he certainly wouldn’t have got that new made up job.
Personally I think they need to lose the whole duke and duchess titles.

Thanks @ KatherineParr. Your posts are very clear.

Because he is worth didly squat without it. They have created a role for him which involves virtually no work. He hasn't got much else worth offering and as another said, his school results were shit...normally someone with his Alevels would have never been offered the opportunity to be come a pilot He still isn't a very sharp knife in the block

I am totally supportive of him and his wife leading private and independent lives as they wish..but not trading on titles, links and interviews like they have. However, without it they can't be multi millionaires.

I'm just waiting until they start rubbing up republican politicians in the USA even more by thick Harry pronouncing on stuff he is better staying out of. Unfortunately he has nill political nouse

I have been a strong royal supporter over the years but this is just about finishing me off. The sooner Charles brings forward slimming down the family the better and stripping them of their titles would be a good start

They are not really jobs anyway. They are more like patronages, but ones he can monetise.

He hasn't got much else worth offering and as another said, his school results were shit...normally someone with his Alevels would have never been offered the opportunity to be come a pilot He still isn't a very sharp knife in the block

So what?
I am sick to death of what is said about him. Not the sharpest lightbulb. Not the sharpest tool in the toolbox. Thick. Stupid. Ignorant. Not the sharpest knife.

If it was anyone but Harry, posters would not be able to say this sort of thing on MN.

So he isn't an academic? Nor am I. But I have had a very good career. And fuck the A levels, I know high fliers without A levels.
It's rude, insulting and really... you ought to look to yourselves for continually calling someone thick. Is it OK if someone forever calls any of your children thick and stupid?

Thanks, Katherine

I'm hoping (against hope) that Charles will decide not to be king, citing age but it would also avoid the Camilla problem. Then we could have a youngish King William and Queen Catherine who could wind the monarchy down thus saving George from his fate!