By relinquishing his status as a senior member of the Royal Family, Prince Harry was stripped of his titles and patronage this Friday, February 19. He thus follows in the footsteps of his mother, Lady Diana.
She would have been the only one likely to understand his distress. If someone close to her assured that she would be furious with her youngest son for renouncing her senior royal status, Lady Diana suffered a fate similar to that of Prince Harry. Champion of more than a hundred causes to which she lent her image, the Princess of Hearts has been an active member of the monarchy and kept her commitments despite her separation from Prince Charles, announced in 1992. But when the London court ended her marriage, the deceased hastily renounced many patronages, including the vice-presidency of the Red Cross.
Unlike Prince Harry, who was caught unawares when Her Majesty Elizabeth II stripped him of his titles, Lady Diana herself chose this massive abandonment, “with great regret”. According to the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair magazine, this Monday, February 22, Prince Charles’ first wife was deprived of financial support following her divorce, thus preventing her from keeping her promises of unfailing devotion to the organizations she represented.
She was still entitled to the handsome sum of £17.5 million and permission to keep her apartment at Kensington Palace. Better still, Lady Di was also able to retain her positions as patron or president of Centrepoint, the English National Ballet, the Leprosy Mission, the National Aids Trust, the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and the Royal Marsden Hospital, as reported in the British magazine Hello! in January 2019. As for losing her title of Royal Highness, symbolic of her missions to the Crown, Lady Diana had no choice.
Harry will remain prince
Forfeited this title, and thus not recognized as a full member of the Firm, she remained Princess of Wales. In accordance with protocol, Lady Diana was therefore forced to bow to her former husband and her two sons. Fate of which Prince Harry, also deprived of his royal highness status and military titles despite his past in the British army, is now making the painful experience for his greatest disappointment. For the fatherland has prevailed over blood ties.
By depriving her grandson of his military distinctions, an irrevocable punishment following the announcement of a confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey this Friday, February 19, Her Majesty Elizabeth II has insisted on maintaining the ties between the Crown and the British armed forces, according to Le Point magazine.
The father-to-be, like Meghan Markle, however, keeps his titles of Prince and Duke of Sussex for the simple reason that the latter was awarded to him as a wedding gift by Her Highness on May 19, 2018. Moreover, they have no connection with his work in the monarchy.
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