Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have begun calling their young daughter Lilibet a princess, apparently ending uncertainty over the royal titles of their two children.
Confirming her baptism last Friday to the PA news agency, a spokesperson for the couple referred to her as “Princess Lilibet Diana”.
The christening reportedly took place at the California home of the couple, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Buckingham Palace confirmed to PA that it would now update its website’s line of succession list.
Although the two children automatically became a prince and princess when Harry’s father King Charles III acceded to the throne in September, they had remained listed as plain “master” and “miss” on the website.
The titles had emerged as a contentious issue after the Sussexes quit royal life and moved to California in 2020.
In an interview with US chat show host Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, Meghan said that Buckingham Palace “didn’t want him (Archie) to become a prince”.
In fact, Archie, now aged three, not being a prince was due to title rules set out by King George V in 1917.
Those rules state that the title of prince or princess is only accorded to the male line grandchildren of the monarch and one other member of the family, not the great grandchildren.
The status of Archie and 21-month-old Lilibet changed from great grandchildren to grandchildren of a monarch on the death of Queen Elizabeth II last year.
Under George V’s rules, the only other member of the family entitled to be a prince is the eldest great grandson in the direct line of succession.
This resulted in the first child of Harry’s brother Prince William and his wife Catherine being known as Prince George.
His younger sister and brother, Charlotte and Louis, also became a princess and prince after the late queen changed the rules in 2012 to include them.
Since they moved to the US, Harry and Meghan have complained bitterly about their treatment as members of the royal family.
Their latest broadside, the January publication of Harry’s autobiography “Spare” is said to have significantly worsened relations between the self-exiled couple and other senior royals.
© Agence France-Presse