She could thank her grandmother for that!
The daughter of Prince William and Princess Kate, she has the title ‘princess’. This title sounds obvious to us, after all, it is a child of. But it wouldn’t have made much difference if Charlotte hadn’t gotten her current title of ‘princess’. Thanks to her grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, she still received this title.
Lady Charlotte
Her Royal Highness Princess Charlotte of Wales was born in 2015 and is the second child of the future King and Queen of England, Prince William and Princess Kate. Like her older brother George, she was given the HRH and princess title at birth, but this was by no means self-evident. The Letters Patent issued in 1917 by King George V stipulated that Charlotte should actually go through life as a ‘Lady’ and not as a princess.
Centuries-old tradition
How exactly does that work? Well, that’s how it is. The Letters Patent specifies exactly who within the royal family receives royal titles and who does not. For example, it states that all children of the sovereign will receive HRH predicates and prince or princess titles. The sovereign’s grandchildren – provided their father is a son of the monarch – are also eligible for the royal titles, as is the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales (the heir apparent). Although William now carries this title, Prince Charles was still the Prince of Wales at the time. His eldest son was therefore entitled to a princely title (William), and a princely title was also reserved for his eldest son (George).
However, that was not the case for Charlotte. Based on the Letters Patent, she had no right to be addressed as Her Royal Majesty or Princess – even if she had been born before her brother.
Queen put a stop to it
But we all know that the daughter of the Waleses does not go through life as a Lady, but as a Princess. According to royal historian Marlene Koenig, the Queen made sure of that. When Kate was pregnant with her first child, the British Queen issued a Letters Patent that ensured that all children of the then-ducal family would be known as princes or princesses.
“If Charlotte had been the first born under the 1917 Letters Patent, she would have been Lady Charlotte Mountbatten-Windsor,” Koenig tells Express. This was because she was a great-granddaughter in the male line, and only the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales had the right to bear an HRH predicate. “So the Queen has solved that little problem.” Ah!
Source: Express | Image: BrunoPress
