Royal soap opera grips Britain: Will Archie be a prince, will William and Harry be reconciled?

King Charles has made the first peace overtures but clearly, monarchy family drama gets renewed for another season – and maybe many more – with Queen’s death

The Prince and Princess of Wales and The Duke and Duchess of Sussex view flowers and messages outside Windsor Castle in tribute to Queen: Twitter/@RoyalFamily

Paran Balakrishnan   |  TT  | 11.09.22 : Now that King Charles III is firmly installed on the throne the question on everyone’s lips is: what will happen to Harry and Meghan? Will the wayward couple be reunited with Harry’s father and the brother to whom the prince was once so close? Or will they stay just as long as is formally required and then return to their luxurious Californian home?      

The signals are mixed so far. The first negative one came when Prince Harry wasn’t invited to fly with the other royals – William, Princess Anne, Edward, Duke of Wessex and his wife Sophie – to Balmoral when the news that Queen Elizabeth was sinking fast became known.

Instead, Harry drove to Balmoral, arriving well after even the official time the Queen breathed her last (the announcement had been delayed for several hours). Harry spent the night at Balmoral and then returned to London with the minimum of publicity. Even the tabloid press wasn’t able to keep track of his exact movements.

Then, came the olive branch extended by his father during what was, strictly speaking, a highly official moment where family rifts should not have intruded. The newly appointed King Charles III, in his first speech, pointedly mentioned his “love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas.”

If the new king had stood up and waved a white flag of reconciliation energetically, his intention couldn’t have been clearer.

Prince William and wife Kate have a glimpse of the tributes to the Queen: Twitter/@RoyalFamily

There was also a reuniting of sorts when William, Kate, Harry and Meghan viewed the flowers together that had been left for the Queen at Windsor Castle but the body language was frosty. And even that small joint public appearance required lengthy negotiations beforehand, royal hands reported. Nevertheless, one royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams predicted there is a chance of a royal reconciliation.

Family reconciliations can be long and torturous affairs and there can be many slips ‘twixt cup and lip. But there is an urgent question that must be answered almost instantly and which could otherwise queer the pitch.

For any royal titles are a crucial part of the game. They’re a sign of where every blue-blooded individual stands in the royal pecking order.

Being without the right title is almost like being undressed in public.

That’s when the spotlight turns on Harry and Meghan’s two-year-old son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor. Should he automatically become Prince Archie now that his grandfather has become king? He is actually now technically a prince and his younger sister, Lilibet, is also entitled to be a princess after Charles’ accession to the throne.

Meghan, though, had alleged that the royal family had discussed changing the rules to cut Archie out of getting the princely and said that they were discriminating against him because of concerns about the colour of the baby’s skin. 

Prince Harry and wife Megan Markle interact with the crowd: Twitter/@RoyalFamily

Meghan has already indicated she’s annoyed that her son didn’t become Prince Archie the moment he was born and that he was being discriminated against, possibly because of his skin colour. But Meghan had perhaps misunderstood the complex rules by which the UK royals are governed.

In 1917 King George V had seen it fit to lay down a few basic rules about the royal titles. These rules came to be known as the George V Convention. Simply put, King George V issued what are called letters patent which laid down that the children and the great-grandchildren of the sovereign have the automatic right to be princes and princesses.

In legalistic court language that was expressed as: “shall have and at all times hold and enjoy the style title or attribute or Royal Highness with their titular dignity of Prince,” before their Christian names. If Charles wanted to stop Harry’s children from taking the titles HRH, he would have to issue a “Letters Patent” removing their right.

King Charles III after the coronation: File Picture

But now that his grandfather has transitioned from Prince Charles to King Charles III it becomes a question that needs an immediate answer. Will he become Prince Archie or not? Charles has long championed a slimmed-down monarchy so Harry’s children might lose their regal titles if he deems them not essential to the functioning of “The Firm” as the royal family is sometimes known. Meghan and Harry stopped using their HRH titles two years ago when they opted to no longer be “working royals.”

This, though, could the battleground for deep family resentments. Meghan, who may have misunderstood the rules before, will now have legitimate grounds for grousing if her son doesn’t get the title that the royal rules prescribe.

King George V forgot to mention daughters – whether by accident or on purpose we do not know – but that has since been amended. Queen Elizabeth had to issue a special notification to ensure that her daughter became Princess Anne. Having got her own title, Anne, however, firmly decided that her two children should not have titles as she felt this would make it easier for them to live ordinary lives.

Things aren’t looking good for Archie and Lilibet to keep their titles even if Harry and Meghan want them to. (Meghan said she would want the title for her son if it meant he would get more security protection).

Charles and Prince William believe that the royal family must move with our more egalitarian times, and become, as one writer described it, a “more role-based monarchy, with titles granted in the expectation that the holder will fulfill the role of prince or princess as required by the modern monarchy.”

In other words, anyone who wants the title must do their share of work, whether that includes opening the Chelsea Flower Show or launching a new battleship (considering the British Navy’s more slimmed-down status, perhaps that should be a minesweeper). 

There are international precedents for a slimmed-down monarchy. Sweden’s King Gustaf XVI recently dropped five grandchildren from the royal list so they will no longer sport the HRH titles before their name.

It’s said that Prince Andrew wants his daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, to be included as working royals but that this isn’t likely to happen. So will Archie, who’s likely to spend his childhood in the US, come under the same axe?

A message left for the late Queen: Twitter/@RoyalFamily

Commentators are pointing out that Britain is a much more populous country than, say, Sweden and that the royals have many more duties to carry out. Earlier, it was expected that Harry would be part of the front-ranking royals but now that he’s no longer there, there could be a heavy burden on Charles, William, Princess Anne plus Prince Edward and his wife.

The question could, in the end, boil down to whether there will there be a reconciliation with Harry and Meghan? Charles has clearly made an overture. But there are trickier questions that remain. Can Charles, William and Harry return to their old relationship? Will there be the perpetual fear that the tape-recorder is running and anything said may be taken down and used against them in the court of Queen Oprah?

Or, will every spoken word become something that could end up in a tell-all publication? As it is, newspapers like the Daily Mail are forcefully saying that Harry should scrap the publication of his forthcoming book in the wake of his grandmother’s death. That could be a costly sacrifice – Harry is reportedly getting several millions for the book. But it could also be costly if he’s sued for non-delivery. What’s certain is that the Queen is dead, Long Live the King, and long live the gripping royal drama and the tabloid feast.