Buckingham Palace administered a deliberate “brutal reality check” to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle by removing their titles on the royal website, a royal expert has claimed.
The Duke of Sussex was stripped of the title “His Royal Highness” three years after stepping back.
The term HRH has been removed from references to the Duke since he and Meghan, decided to “step back as ‘senior’ members’ of the Royal Family in January 2020.
Now royal expert Richard Kay says the “brutal” move wasn’t a coincidence, stressing King Charles is “more decisive” than the late Queen.
He added that the royals are furious at the “sustained” attacks from the Sussexes, according to sources.
Writing for the Daily Mail, he said: “It was surely no coincidence that the Prince’s arrival in the Far East coincided with the brutal reality check administered by Buckingham Palace about his status — and that of his wife, Meghan — in the new‑look Royal Family.”
“A visceral bitterness persists at the sustained attacks that Harry and Meghan have waged against family members through his memoir and their various television interviews.
“In such a highly charged atmosphere, there was resentment that elements of the Duke and Duchess’s previous lives were allowed to remain unaltered, as though they were still somehow part of ‘the Firm’.
“One reason there was no push for a change was because the late Queen Elizabeth wanted to ensure that anything her grandson might interpret as a snub or the slamming of a royal door was avoided.”
A close figure reportedly told the expert: “Her Majesty never stopped hoping there would be some kind of reconciliation and that the couple would return to the fold one day.”
The expert added: “But her death last September predated the trauma of Harry’s book, Spare, and the explosive revelations he made about his father, brother and, in particular, his stepmother, now Queen Camilla, whom he accused of leaking stories about him to improve her own public image.
“For all his anguish about his youngest son, King Charles has been more decisive.
“He evicted the couple from their Windsor property, Frogmore Cottage, and many detect his hand in the adjustments carried out to the royal website.”
The site continued to refer to King Charles’ youngest son as HRH until the error was corrected last week after an expose by Express.co.uk.
The site also made tweaks to Meghan’s bio, as it previously slated how “after university, Her Royal Highness worked as an actress”.
It now reads: “After university, she worked as an actress.”
A later passage relating how “Her Royal Highness also wrote and edited a lifestyle website” has been changed to “the duchess also wrote and edited a lifestyle website”.
The position of Harry’s landing page on the Firm’s site has also been moved down and now falls below working members.
Harry and Meghan’s pages are now placed side by side below the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra.
Following the removal, Buckingham Palace said there are over five thousand pages on the site and these are having to be “revisited and updated periodically”, particularly in light of the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September.
A spokesperson added: “Some content may be out of date until this process is complete.”
