Prince Harry and Meghan started using Prince and Princess titles for Archie and Lilibet, who are sixth and seventh in line to the throne, after the princess’s christening in 2023, following correspondence with King Charles on the matter.
They were then named as such – Prince Archie of Sussex and Princess Lilibet of Sussex – on the Royal Family’s line of succession page. They were previously known as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor.
A spokesperson for the Sussexes said at the time: “The children’s titles have been a birthright since their grandfather became monarch. This matter has been settled for some time in alignment with Buckingham Palace.”
Lilibet became entitled to use the title princess upon the King’s accession to the throne due to the late Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather, King George V. She does not use a HRH status as it was decided that Harry and Meghan would not be allowed to use their HRH titles when they stepped down as working royals.
In 1917, the King issued a Letters Patent which stated that the monarch’s children, male-line grandchildren, and the eldest son of the Prince of Wales are entitled to princely status.
According to royal historian Marlene Koenig, the 1917 Letters Patent effectively “established the current system of who is royal and who is not”.
Lilibet and Archie’s official family name is still Mountbatten-Windsor as it is written on their birth certificates. It is the name is available to all descendants of the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip as it combines the Royal Family’s name of Windsor and the late Duke’s adopted surname of Mountbatten.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may have stepped down as senior working royals in 2020 before they moved to America, but they still retain their royal titles.
On their wedding day in 2018, they were bestowed three new titles as the late Queen gave them Dukedom of Sussex, the Earldom of Dumbarton and Barony of Kilkeel.
Therefore, Harry and Meghan are known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the Earl and Countess of Dumbarton when in Scotland and Baron and Baroness Kilkeel when they are in Northern Ireland. The Sussexes still retain their HRH style despite quitting the Firm five years ago.
In an agreement with the late Queen and the rest of the Royal Family, it was decided that Harry and Meghan would stop using HRH in a commercial or public capacity but they could still use them for private or official events.
