Prince Harry ‘sabotaging’ King’s plans with decision to give Archie and Lilibet new titles
Prince Harry’s decision to give his children the titles of Prince and Princess may have “sabotaged” King Charles’s plans for a slimmed-down monarchy, according to a royal expert. Just two days after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made their plans for Archie and Lilibet clear, Buckingham Palace announced that Prince Edward would be given the title Duke of Edinburgh, as had been the wish of the late Queen and Prince Philip
Daily Mail Diary Editor Richard Eden believes the King “didn’t intend” to give his brother the title as part of his plans to “slim down” the royals.
He told the Palace Confidential talk show: “But then, when Harry and Meghan started using the prince and princess titles for their children, it became clear this wasn’t going to happen and then King Charles could hardly justify not giving Prince Edward the title he’d been promised by their parents.
“It was a big deal and I really think that was behind it.”
However he added that Charles has a trick up his sleeve to get back at his youngest son.
By insisting that the Edinburgh title reverts to the Crown when Edward dies, rather than it passing onto his children, Harry will be unable to hand down his own title.
He added: “I have heard it said that part of the reason is that the King wants to stop Archie inheriting that title the Duke of Sussex. So this might be part of that, so he has now set that precedent.
“The problem is, that he’d have to do it with all the royal dukes so he really wouldn’t want to do that to the very well respected Dukes of Gloucester and Kent.”
Last Wednesday Harry and Meghan announced their daughter Lilibet Diana had been christened, three months shy of her second birthday.
In their official statement they referred to her as Princess Lilibet for the first time.
Now that their grandfather Charles is monarch the Sussex children can use the titles Prince and Princess, although it had not been known up until now if that was what Harry and Meghan wanted.
On Friday Prince Edward and his wife Sophie were announced as the new Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, as his late parents had expressly desired.
