Buckingham Palace left Lilibet off the list for over a month.
After Backlash, Meghan and Harry’s Daughter Has Been Added to the Line of Succession
Put away the pitchforks: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s daughter, Lilibet, has finally been added to the official royal line of succession.
In late July, Cosmopolitan reported that the youngest child of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex remained off the line of succession on the royal family’s website (click here for screengrabs). Considering Lilibet Diana was born well over a month before, on June 4, this struck many royal followers as very odd, if not downright disrespectful.
At the time, ITV’s Chris Ship said Buckingham Palace could be “making a point” by leaving Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter off the list. But per Cosmo, a royal representative said that the site is simply “updated periodically.”
“You have got to ask what has taken them so long. All they have got to do is hit the paragraph button and put in a different number,” Ship said, according to The Mirror. “They must have done it before. They did it for Archie. Clearly, they did it for Louis when he was born. And they have done it for some of the other children like August that have been born as well.”
He continued, “So where’s Lilibet? I can forgive them a week or two but a month?.... Is it them saying, ‘We will get around to it when ready?’ It does feel like to me, maybe, they are making a point.”
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Well, if the royal family was making a point, someone must have decided enough was enough. On July 26, royals reporter Omid Scobie pointed out that Lilibet has officially been given a spot on the list. The little royal is now sitting at number eight, just under her brother, Archie, and two under her father, Prince Harry. (Neither Meghan Markle nor Kate Middleton are on this list as they are not royal-born.)
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You may notice that Archie and Lilibet are listed as “Master” and “Miss,” as opposed to “Prince” and “Princess” like their Cambridge cousins. This is rumored to be a major contention between the Sussexes and the rest of the royal family. In that explosive Oprah Winfrey interview, Meghan Markle explained that the family had decided to change “protocol” for her two-year-old.
“They didn’t want him to be a prince . . . which would be different from protocol, and that he wasn’t going to receive security,” Markle told Winfrey, per People. “We have in tandem the conversation of, ‘He won't be given security. He’s not going to be given a title.’ And also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born.”
However, there is still a chance they will be “upgraded,” according to royals historian Robert Lacey. “I don’t think [Prince Charles] will make the unpopular and hostile move of removing the royal status of his grandchildren,” Lacey told People in June. Time will tell.
This story originally appeared on: Glamour - Author:Condé Nast
