For all of Harry and Meghan’s near-constant talk about needing their privacy, it is an unfortunate running theme that their every single action seems designed to elicit both headline inches and discussion as to what they’re going to do next. It also appears, alas, that their entire family are fair game for this kind of exposure, as can be seen by the news that their younger child, Lilibet Diana, was christened in California on Friday 3 March.
Yet the Sussex PR game is not a perfect one. It had to be clarified immediately that Lilibet’s christening was performed by the Episcopal bishop John Harvey Taylor, not the local Roman Catholic one: had the latter performed the ceremony, then she would have automatically been removed from the line of succession, in which she is currently seventh.
The mild provocation of their daughter’s names, with the Christian name being an allusion to Harry’s close relationship with the Queen, is nothing as compared to the fact that the announcement made pointed reference to her being Princess Lilibet Diana. There has been much debate as to whether King Charles was going to remove the royal titles from the Sussexes, and the matter was still widely regarded as unresolved. On the official Royal Family website – which is usually the authoritative source for such things – their daughter was listed until today as ‘Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor’ and their son as ‘Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor’.
Before this no mention was made of their being a prince or princess, even though it has been suggested that Harry and Meghan had wished for their children to be so named last year – helpfully ignoring Prince Harry’s frequent comments that the title has been a millstone round his neck, a veritable mark of Cain everywhere he has gone, etc etc. While it has been suggested that they would like to offer their children the choice as to whether they keep their titles in later life or abandon them, it seems unlikely that most people, if offered the chance to be referred to as a Prince or Princess, with all the patronage and respect that that entails, would turn that down in favour of being plain old Mr or Miss. Certainly, Harry has not been in any hurry to be referred to as ‘Mr Harry Sussex’ since his own quasi-abdication at the beginning of 2020.
One can only feel sorry for Lilibet and Archie. Without their knowledge or consent, they have become pawns in a far bigger game than their christening, in which every action and decision of their parents has to be viewed as a move against their wider family. It is a terrible thing for a child to be estranged from their uncles, grandparents and cousins from birth, and it remains uncertain as to whether this will ever end, but the determinedly self-centred actions of Harry and Meghan have meant that any collateral damage that has occurred from their publicity-seeking antics is something that will undoubtedly require years of therapy to unpick in the future. It cannot be considered now.
The attendance, or otherwise, of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the coronation in two months’ time remains the only game in town when it comes to rampant media speculation about their future actions. Yet this story suggests that Brand Sussex is as ruthlessly focused on every aspect of detail when it comes to their family’s wider reputation as they have ever been, baptism practitioners aside. The Royal Family would be well advised not to deal with them with any complacency, but instead to be prepared for a long, difficult journey before any kind of compromise – or truce – can be reached with the ‘other’ royal family.
Alexander Larman’s latest book, The Windsors at War, is published today by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (£25).
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