Last week, the Guardian had an interesting story about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It came on the heels of tabloid reports about Prince Harry asking for advice from his uncle Charles Spencer about possibly changing his surname to “Spencer.” The Guardian’s Sussex-sources confirmed that Harry did ask for his uncle’s advice, but they added more context to the situation – basically, Harry and Meghan applied for Archie and Lili’s British passports with their titles and HRHs, and there was a months-long delay in issuing the passports. Harry believed that his father’s courtiers organized the passport delay because of King Charles’s indecision over the Sussex titles. Thus, Harry considered changing the family’s surname to Spencer.
The story, to me, was that Charles has too much power if he’s interfering with the issuing of children’s passports. To the British tabloids, the story was that Harry was provoking his father’s ire by considering a name change. But at the end of the Guardian’s piece, another wrinkle appeared and now the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden is seizing upon it, alongside some royal sources. The Guardian published this statement: “The Guardian understands that Prince Harry wants to keep the HRH titles for his children so that when they grow older they can decide for themselves whether they want to become working royals, or stay out of public life.” Gasps echoed across the palace and a briefing was duly organized:
The Guardian newspaper, a favourite of Left-wing republicans, was the unusual recipient of a briefing from ‘sources close to the Sussexes’ last week. These apparently well-informed insiders were keen to share private details with the newspaper about the passports of the couple’s children, Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four.
The Guardian reported that passport applications for both children included the titles HRH (His /Her Royal Highness) as well as the surname Sussex, which – as viewers of the duchess’s latest Netflix show With Love, Meghan will be well aware – is the one she now insists on being used. Buried in this strange report in a newspaper not usually interested in royal gossip was a revelation which, I am told, left Palace insiders ‘utterly bewildered’.
It read: ‘The Guardian understands that Prince Harry wants to keep the HRH titles for his children so that when they grow older they can decide for themselves whether they want to become working royals, or stay out of public life.’
It begs the question: Could the Sussexes, who chose to give up boring old public duties to seek their fortune in the US, stage a return to the royal fold via their children?
‘I find this very hard to understand,’ one royal source told me this week. ‘Harry and Meghan apparently found official duties and life within the Royal Family unbearable, yet they want this for their children. It doesn’t make sense.’
It’s true that the Sussexes have devoted much time and energy to publicising their unhappiness with royal life. So why would she and Harry want their children to return to the ‘goldfish bowl’ of royal life? My suspicion is that this is less about the future roles of their children and more about maintaining Harry and Meghan’s royal links now. Meghan, in particular, seems well aware of the value of the HRH titles, which they reportedly insisted were printed on their children’s passports.
“Which they reportedly insisted were printed on their children’s passports” – fun times. I often “insist” that my legal name should be printed accurately on official documents as well. That’s what Harry and Meghan were doing – “insisting” that their children’s official, legal names were being used on their government-issued passports. It’s not their fault that Charles is an indecisive and racist monster who wanted to keep his mixed-race grandchildren in legal limbo about their NAMES while he dithered and looked for work-arounds for the George V letters patent. As for what the Guardian reported… I have no idea if that part came from a Sussex source or if the Guardian just decided to throw some red meat at the royalists. I absolutely do not believe that Harry and Meghan want to give their kids the “option” of being working royals. It’s far more likely that they simply want the kids to be able to choose their names/titles when they get older.
Photos courtesy of Meghan’s IG.
