In this video the Sussexes are introduced as HRH’s. I thought that they were no longer going to use HRH?
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The
announcement of the January 2020 agreement between the Sussexes and the senior royals read:
The Sussexes will not use their HRH titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal Family.
After a similar recent event (the Vice President of Ukraine addressed a thank-you letter to the Duke of Sussex as “Your Royal Highness”, then the Duchess of Sussex posted the letter on her Instagram), three acquaintances of the royal family
complained about it anonymously to reporter Tom Sykes of the Daily Beast:
Buckingham Palace declined to comment, but a friend of King Charles III told The Daily Beast that he would be dismayed at Markle posting a screengrab to Instagram of a message from a senior Ukrainian’s vice prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, that began, “Your Royal Highness, I would like to express my sincere thanks for everything your family is doing for Ukraine.”
“It’s outrageous. Every time you think they can’t make it worse, they make it worse,” the friend of the king said. “The deal with the HRH was a way to stop them cashing in while letting them walk away with pride and dignity and trust, and now Markle is using her HRH on a website which seems to exist to sell jam.”
“They say they want reconciliation,” the source added. “I’m sure the king’s first reaction will be dismay, but he simply doesn’t allow himself to get angry about things like this anymore.”
A friend of Prince William’s said: “It’s actually quite a clever way of testing the water, because there is deniability there, she can say, ‘Well, I just wanted to publish this nice letter to raise awareness for Ukraine, and oops! they got my name wrong—but oh, actually, now I think of it, I never gave the title up anyway, and maybe I will start using it again.‘"
“It’s a step in the wrong direction, basically, away from the agreement. You’d have to be an idiot to believe that she didn’t know exactly what she was doing when she posted that message, unedited, to her stories.”
An expert in heraldry who knows the family told The Daily Beast: “There were plenty of people at the time who said it was a mistake to make not using the title a mere gentleman’s agreement rather than just removing it. This post may not matter in and of itself, but it raises a bigger question: What are they going to do if she simply starts using her HRH again? She probably can’t be stopped as things stand right now. The bottom line is, she is, officially, an HRH. It was never removed.”
The offices of the King, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
did not respond to the reporter’s requests for comment.
I wonder if the “expert in heraldry who knows the family” is an official at
the College of Arms, given that the previous head of that agency has spoken on the record in the past about teaching the Duchess of Sussex about British royal titles.
It’s not clear to me if these acquaintances are truly speaking for the King and Prince of Wales, but if they are (or think they are), I am not sure what complaints to a reporter (who sensationalizes the story) are meant to accomplish. If, as these three people believe, the Duchess of Sussex is considering breaking the 2020 agreement and resuming using her HRH, I doubt she will be discouraged by anonymous grumbling to the Daily Beast (especially from the King’s friend calling her “Markle”).