Prince William reportedly plans to strip Meghan Markle and Prince Harry of their HRH tiles when he becomes king, over concerns that Meghan has violated an agreement with the late Queen Elizabeth II and is using the title for commercial purposes.
Sources told the Daily Beast that William is determined to strip the couple of the HRH titles, which stand for His and Her Royal Highness, since Meghan has recently made it clear that she plans to continue using the title, even after she and Harry told the queen they wouldn’t.
Meghan has been seen publicly brandishing her HRH title in recent promotional efforts related to her personal brand and her venture in selling jam and other lifestyle products, according to the Daily Beast.
“(King) Charles might be happy to put up with this, but William won’t,” a former courtier told The Daily Beast’s European editor Tom Sykes. “He loathes and despises Harry and Meghan with every bone in his body, he believes they have betrayed everything the family stands for and the idea that they are using their royal status as a calling card will enrage him.”
HRH is a mostly honorific title that’s granted by the monarch. It doesn’t necessarily confer special powers, perks or responsibilities, but it carries a lot of symbolic weight and prestige. It is usually reserved for children and grandchildren of the monarch, typically senior royals who represent the monarch in an official capacity, according to CNN.
It sometimes is extended to their spouses, which the queen did for Meghan when she married Harry in 2018. But both Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson lost their HRH titles when they divorced Charles and Prince Andrew, respectively.
When Harry and Meghan decided to leave royal duties in 2020, move to the United States and pursue potentially lucrative media deals and other commercial opportunities, they got to keep their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles.
They also got to keep their HRH titles, but only under an agreement with the late queen that they would never publicly use the titles or refer to themselves as HRH — since they no longer represented her or the British government, according to CNN and the Daily Beast. For the queen and others, there was serious concern about making sure that Harry and Meghan kept their planned commercial ventures separate from their royal associations.
Friends of William told the Daily Beast last week that they thought Meghan has been testing the waters of using her HRH title. It started when she posted on social media a screengrab of a note she received from a senior Ukrainian official, who addressed her as HRH.
Posting the complimentary note no doubt was Meghan’s way of burnishing her profile as a global philanthropist. But Meghan knew when it came to the HRH issue, she could also say she had “deniability” because she herself didn’t use the tile because the note came from someone else, Sykes wrote.
Now, it has emerged that Meghan sent podcaster and entrepreneur Jamie Kern Lima a gift basket of her As Ever brand of “homemade strawberry sauce” with a card saying: “With the Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex.” The basket, and the note, were displayed on the latest edition of Kern Lima’s podcast.
Meghan’s side has argued that she is entitled to use the title, provided it’s not for commercial use, Sykes reported.
But a former palace aide told Sykes that this interpretation the agreement with the queen is “complete rubbish.” The source said that the so-called Sandringham Summit in January 2020 — where the queen, Charles, William and Harry settled the terms of his and Meghan’s exit from royal life — “made it clear that they had agreed not to use the HRH titles at all, ever, in any capacity.”
The official statement, which can still be seen on the official royal website, supports this interpretation, according to Sykes. It reads: “The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family.”
If Meghan has violated the agreement, it appears that Charles is reluctant to take any action because he doesn’t want to upset his daughter-in-law and son. While the king would one day like to reconcile with his son, the relationship has become so bad that he has stopped responding to his son’s phone calls or letters, People magazine reported.
“Charles has completely lost control,” a friend of William’s told Sykes. “Meghan using her HRH exposes how weak and enfeebled he is. She knows he won’t do anything.”
On the other hand, this friend said. “There is no way King William will stand for this. The titles will simply be removed when he is king.”