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March 8, 2021 11:14PM EST

Meghan Markle & Prince Harry: Royal Historian Says Archie Not Having A Title Is ‘Not A Racial Issue’ – Here’s Why

Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex with their baby son during a photocall in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle in BerkshirePrince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex new Baby Photocall, Windsor Castle, UK - 08 May 2019
Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex, holding their son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa
Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex visit to Africa - 25 Sep 2019
Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex, holding son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu during a visit to the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa.
Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex visit to Africa - 25 Sep 2019
Meghan Duchess of Sussex, holds her son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor during a visit to the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town, South Africa
Duke and Duchess of Sussex on royal tour of South Africa, Cape Town - 25 Sep 2019
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are on an official visit to South Africa. Founded in Cape Town in 2013, the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation contributes to the development of youth and leadership, facilitates discussions about social justice and common human purposes and makes the lessons of Archbishop Tutu accessible to new generations. It is located in one of Cape Town's oldest buildings and a national landmark, The Old Granary Building. View Gallery View Gallery 19 Photos.
Marissa Charles
News Director / Senior Editor
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A royal expert explains to HollywoodLife why none of Prince Harry’s kids will be HRH, Prince or Princess, saying that it’s thanks to an old rule, not because of race.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son Archie’s royal status – or lack thereof – was a hot topic during the couple’s primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey on March 7. During the CBS special, the 39-year-old Duchess of Sussex alleged that when she was pregnant with her first child, her royal in-laws “didn’t want him to be a prince.” Saying that this “would be different from protocol,” she went on to tell a shocked Oprah that the family also told her the baby “wasn’t going to receive security.”

Meghan also noted that her child would be “the first member of color” in the royal family and would not be “titled in the same way that [the] other grandchildren would be.”

Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey
Meghan Markle spoke to Oprah Winfrey as part of a CBS primetime special, which aired on March 7. (Harpo Productions/Joe Pugliese)

But historian Marlene Koenig says that Meghan and Harry can thank the Queen’s late grandfather, King George V, for Archie’s lack of title. “This is not a racial issue,” the expert on British and European royalty tells HollywoodLife. “Meghan tried to make it that, but [it] wasn’t. Press coverage, yes, but not the issue about Archie, because that has been long planned.”

According to Marlene, George V determined Archie’s status in his 1917 Letters Patent, which is a fancy way of describing a document that the sovereign issues. “It’s a way to inform. It’s not a law,” Marlene says. “It’s just a document, because the sovereign is known as the fount of all honors. The succession to the throne is through legislation. Titles come from the sovereign.”

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Archie
Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, introducing baby Archie to the world in May 2019. (Shutterstock)

Queen Elizabeth herself has issued Letters Patents. For example in 1996, after the divorces of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, “the Queen issued a Letters Patent that states that former wives of spouses who are royal highnesses, lose the HRH” aka, Her Royal Highness.

Marlene believes that George V issued his own Letters Patent about titles in 1917 because he wanted to “limit the number of royals, or rather the generations.” “When he got married and had his first children – including the future Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor – they were great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria. That was in 1894 [when Edward VIII was born]. We would not have that [scenario] again until 2013 when Prince George was born,” she says. (Of course, George, like Archie, is the Queen’s great-grandson.)

In 1917 George V crafted a Letters Patent that declared, “The grandchildren of the sons of any such sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest living son of the Prince of Wales) shall have and enjoy in all occasions the style and title enjoyed by the children of dukes of this realm.”

King George V
Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather, George V, whose 1917 Letters Patent determined the royal status of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s children more than a century later. (Shutterstock)

Simply put, that rule meant that the only grandchild of Prince Charles who would be considered royal would be Prince William’s first male child. (In other words, had this rule stayed in place, even William’s daughter Charlotte, and son Louis, would not be a Prince or Princess.)

But in January 2013, months before Prince George was born, the Queen issued another Letters Patent amending the 1917 one declaring that all of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s children – whatever their gender – would be a Prince or Princess.

“Now, if Harry’s children were to be royal at birth, it would have happened then,” Marlene says. “It would have said, ‘All children of all the sons of the Prince of Wales.’ It didn’t. So, that’s not a snub.” In other words this rule was in place, long before Prince Harry met Meghan and would have been the case whatever Meghan’s race. (However, when he becomes king, Prince Charles can give the Sussexes’ children royal titles.)

Prince Charles, Prince George, Prince William
Princes Charles, William and George are all heirs to the British throne. (Shutterstock)

As for the issue of security, Marlene concedes that the two issues are tied, because protection is offered to working royals only. “You have to remember that there has been for years criticism of the cost of security of royal events and royal folks,” she says, pointing out that Prince Andrew’s daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie lost their 24-hour protection years ago due to budget cuts.

“As a child, he’s with his parents, he’s going to certainly be protected by those who guard his parents,” Marlene says, referring to the protection that Archie would have received at the time of his May 2019 birth when both of his parents were working royals.

Sadly that is no longer the case as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have now stepped down as senior royals and working members of the monarchy.

Queen Elizabeth II
Like her grandfather, the Queen has issued Letters Patents about royal titles. (Shutterstock)

While Marlene doesn’t believe that Archie’s lack of royal status is a racial issue, she does believe that the Windsors have a problem in that area. “[They] do need to address the issue of racism,” she says. Her comments come on the heels of Meghan and Harry telling Oprah that a member of the family discussed “how dark” Archie’s skin would be.

“It’s something they are going to have to confront as a family, as an organization,” she says. “And people just have to step back and listen to some things that Meghan said.”

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