Prince George: Expert compares future life to Archie's

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Archie Harrison Mountbatten Windsor, the eldest child of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, will celebrate his second birthday in May, shortly before his younger sister is expected to be born. Archie is not entitled to use a prince title and therefore is officially known as Master Archie, despite being seventh in line to the throne. His first cousin three times removed the Duke of Gloucester does, however, use this prince title. So why is this?

The revealing interview with Meghan and Prince Harry saw the Duchess of Sussex levy a number of damning accusations at the Royal Family.

The Sussex couple are currently expecting their second child, having welcomed their son Archie in May 2019.

Archie is seventh in line to the throne and his baby sister will be eighth in line to the throne, but neither will have a prince or princess title.

Speaking about her son’s lack of a royal title, Meghan said: “They were saying they didn’t want him to be a prince or princess, not knowing what the gender would be, which would be different from protocol.”

She added: “They said [he’s not going to get security] because he’s not going to be a Prince.

“Okay, well, he needs to be safe so we’re not saying don’t make him a Prince or Princess, but if you’re saying the title is what’s going to affect that protection, we haven’t created this monster machine around us in terms of clickbait and tabloid fodder you’ve allowed that to happen which means our son needs to be safe.”

Archie’s distant relative Prince Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, however, does use the prince title, despite being 28th in line to the throne.

Prince Richard, the Duke of Gloucester, 76, is the Queen’s cousin.

His father was Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the younger brother of the Queen’s father King George VI.

Richard, born in 1944, is the youngest grandchild of King George V and Queen Mary and youngest son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester.

At the time of his birth, he was fifth in the line of succession to the throne and second in line to his father’s dukedom, but now is 28th in the line of succession.

The rules about who is entitled to a prince or princess title is outlined in the letters patent.

These were issued by King George V in November 1917.

The 1917 letter outlined how great-grandchildren of the monarch would no longer be princes or princesses, except for the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.

This means, Prince George, the eldest son of Prince William is automatically a prince, but his cousin Archi is not.

In December 2012, the Queen issued a letter patent enabling all of Prince William and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge’s children to be entitled to be princes of princesses, with the HRH title.

Being a prince or princess only goes through the male line, which means Princess Anne’s children were not automatically entitled to prince or princess titles despite being the Queen’s grandchildren.

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Why is Prince Richard entitled to use the prince title?

Prince Richard was made a prince at the time of his birth because he was the grandchild of King George V and Queen Mary.

The rules allow all male-descendant grandchildren of the monarch to use the title.

Great-grandchildren however are not automatically permitted to these titles.

According to the 1917 letter, Archie is entitled to become a prince, but not yet.

When Prince Charles becomes king, Archie and his baby sister will be entitled to use prince and princess titles because they are his grandchildren.

This means once Prince Charles is King, Archie will become His Royal Highness Prince Archie.

Now is the first time since 1894 when there have been four living generations in the Royal Family.

This means historically royal rules did not account for generations to survive as long and therefore rules around titles did not take this into consideration.

However, the Duchess of Sussex also mentioned there are also plans to narrow the eligibility for the prince and princess titles.

This likely refers to Prince Charles’ desire to reduce the size of the Royal Family.

Under the Prince of Wales’ plans for a “slimmed-down monarchy,” only senior members of the Royal Family would be paid for and undertake work on behalf of the monarchy.

Minor royals would instead be dropped from the roster.

On Pod Save the Queen, Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers said: “Unless there was another Letters Patent, [Archie] would never have become a Prince, he would never have been HRH, nor would the new girl they are expecting.

“Meghan kind of touched upon this, saying the rules weren’t the same as the Cambridges’ kids and of course she took that to be a slight because their children would have become the first people to be born within the Royal Family who are mixed race.

“But I think they’ve just confused themselves and I think that is probably the most diplomatic way to put it, because this is easily debunked.

“Maybe their argument would have been ‘it would have been nice for the Queen to design another Letters Patent and make sure that our children are on equal footing to the Cambridge children.

“Well, that doesn’t really fit on so many levels. Prince Charles has always spoken about a slimmed-down monarchy.

“He didn’t want the rest of the family to be treated like Andrew’s children ‒ I know Andrew kicked up a stink many many moons ago and wanted his children to be Prince or Princess and have all the trappings of royal life without doing very much for it.

“And I don’t know whether that’s really served Beatrice and Eugenie well, because look at how Zara Tindall has got on with her life by not having a title and seems arguably to have achieved a lot more and be a lot more with the public ‒ whether they care about that, I’m not sure.”

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