When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle decided to walk away from the Royal Family, The Queen decided to take away their HRH titles. This means that neither Harry nor Meghan will be referred to as his or her royal highness. Something that Harry had been going by basically since birth.
The royal website and many other Royal Family exhibits had continued the courtesy of referring to Prince Harry as His Royal Highness. That’s not happening anymore though. In the royal exhibit that Harry is set to visit at the beginning of July, he’ll get a reminder that he’s not an active royal.
Harry got his HRH title dropped from the label that accompanies his mother’s wedding dress. The gown is currently being displayed at Kensington Palace along with other royal dresses. At first, the royal collection had written,
“Lent by HRH The Duke of Cambridge and HRH The Duke of Sussex,”
The collection though amended their error and literally just removed the “HRH” label before Harry’s name. Now the text accompanying the dress just reads,
“Lent by HRH The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex,”
This would seem to be a pretty insignificant typo. The fact though that The Royal Collection Trust went out of its way to address the issue tells the story of the current relationship between Harry and the family.
If the relationship between Harry and the family had not gone off the rails there’s a good chance that this “technical error” would have gone completely unnoticed. By this point, the whole world knows the relationship is not on great terms. This simple gesture is another sign of that.
Most royals are certainly trying to avoid the topic. In a recent interview with CNN, the Queen’s youngest son Prince Edward wasn’t allowed to sidestep the topic. He was asked directly how the Queen was coping with the rift between the Sussexes and the rest of the family. Prince Edward mentioned it was, “very sad”, then he went on to say it was an issue that many of them had dealt with before adding,
“We’ve all been there before, we’ve all had excessive intrusion and attention in our lives. And we’ve all dealt with it in slightly different ways, and listen, we wish them the very best of luck. It’s a really hard decision,”
Another royal that got asked about Harry and Meghan was the Duchess of Cambridge. Kate mentioned that she and William were not on the video call that Harry and Meghan supposedly had with the Queen. Where Harry and Meghan presented their new daughter to the monarch.
There has been no such contact between brothers William and Harry. Which again sums up the current state of the relationship. Royal titles or not though Kate did mention,
“I can’t wait to meet her because haven’t yet met her. So hopefully that will be soon.”
