Image: ANGELA WEISS (AFP)
A spokesman for the two confirmed to the PA news agency that their daughter, who was born in 2021, was christened last Friday and called her “Princess Lilibet Diana” in this context. According to the PA, Buckingham Palace said on Wednesday that the list of heirs on the royal website was being updated accordingly.
Following Harry and Meghan’s retirement from royal duties in 2020, the US actress said the royal family did not want her first son Archie to become a prince. However, the fact that Archie, who is now three years old, did not initially become a prince was due to the rules for the award of titles issued by the British King George V in 1917.
According to this, only grandchildren in the male line of succession from the monarch and one other family member are entitled to the title of prince or princess – but only to the eldest great-grandson.
Therefore, initially only George, the first child of Harry’s brother William and his wife Kate, bore the title. In 2012, the then reigning Queen Elizabeth II changed the titling rules to also make George’s younger siblings Charlotte and Louis princess and prince.
When Elizabeth II died in September 2022, both of Meghan’s and Harry’s children, Archie and Lilibet Diana, finally acquired the right to be called prince and princess. On the royal family’s website, however, the two were still only listed as “Master” and “Miss”.
According to media reports, Lilibet Diana (1) was christened in the US state of California in the house of Meghan and Harry, who have the titles Duke and Duchess of Sussex. “I can confirm that Princess Lilibet Diana was christened by Archbishop of Los Angeles John Taylor on Friday March 3,” a representative for the couple said on Wednesday. Britain’s PA news agency pointed out that it was the first time King Charles III’s granddaughter called a princess.
Lilibet became a princess the moment Charles III. became the new British monarch on September 8, 2022 with the death of Queen Elizabeth II. On the palace’s website, however, she is still officially listed as “Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor”. The girl, named after her great-grandmother Elizabeth’s family nickname, is seventh in line to the throne.
Source: Nachrichten
