Or at least this is what it said in my newspaper today.
She did marry a prince, after all. I do understand the underlying difference in style between Charles, Prince of Wales and Prince William of Wales. But isn’t William still basically a prince? A prince without, as it were, territorial designation but nevertheless a bona fide prince? He’s a Duke now, of course, which makes her a Duchess, but before yesterday was he technically a commoner, like the eldest son of a Duke’s eldest son?
Don’t really know the answer, but maybe because she’s not an heir to the throne.
There’s plenty of people that are heirs and aren’t princesses or that aren’t heirs but are princesses.
She is a princess (Princess William), she’s just not usually going to be styled using the word princess because she’s got better stuff she can use.
When the Duke of York (later King George VI) married in 1923, there was a little bit of confusion about whether Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon would take on all of his titles as his wife (since most other brides had had their own royal titles by birth in their own royal family), but eventually it was announced that (bolding mine):
She is legally a princess, but only by marriage and not by birth. This is why she’s “Princess William” instead of “Princess Catherine”. Diana was in the same boat (Princess Charles), but the media just ignored the distinction and called her “Princess Diana”. Because William was created a duke his wife is also a duchess and thus fromally styled “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambride”, the HRH is was indicates she’s a princess. If he wasn’t made a peer she’d have been “HRH Princess William of Wales” just like her aunt-in-law (cousine-in-law) Princess Michael of Kent (guess who she’s married too ;)).
Princess Anne’s children and grandchild are an example of the first group; their being born commoners did not affect their place in the succession, since blood tells, so to speak. However, I thought that happened because Anne and Mark Phillips declined the offer of a title for him when they married. In other words, it was a positive action to reject a title in that case. Moreover, in the absence of a title being offered and accepted by Mark, this was very much the default outcome.
Is William, then, not actually a prince? IIRC Diana did become a princess in the full legal sense when she married Prince Charles, but by that time Charles had been officially created Prince of Wales. Prince William, however, hadn’t been created anything until yesterday–is that the answer to my question?
Great link.
William is a Prince. The letters patent issued by King George V in 1917 say that any child or male-line grandchild of the sovereign (and the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) is a Prince(ss) entitled to the style His/Her Royal Highness.
That’s not quite right. The “is your dad a prince” part only works if the dad is a son of a sovereign (at least as far as British titles are concerned).
As of right now, William’s daughter would not be a princess (but she would immediately become one upon Charles’ accession). I expect that the Queen would fix that in utero, though. (Her first two children wouldn’t have been a prince and a princess until her accession to the throne had King George VI not issued letters patent just for them.)
Correct, so Prince William’s eldest son & heir will be “HRH Prince N of Cambridge”, but his daughters and younger sons will all be “the Lord/Lady N Mountbatten-Windsor”. They get an upgrade when Charles becomes king (& another one when William himself becomes king).
This is worse than physics. There the turtles only stand on each other’s backs, they don’t marry and breed. I like the the system here in the US where every father’s daughter is a princess.
+1 on the great link from Simplicio
Whatever the rules, Prince William’s wife is going to be called Princess Kate by most of the people in the world, starting yesterday, pedants be damned.
According to that, the only living British princesses wold be Anne and Camilla. Fail!
This. (And I’m an Englishman).
Oh Cromwell, your country needs you more than ever!
Sorry - why do we need someone to step in and be a bloodthirstier tyrant than the monarch he had murdered?
I didn’t pay much attention but IIRC I usually heard her called “Lady Di”.
Because as Ralph Peters says in the May 2011 issue of Armchair General “Contrary to the wildly inaccurate portrayals of Cromwell as a religious fanatic, he opposed, in turn, the attempt of Anglican bishops to force their brand of religious forms on all Englishmen, the efforts of Scottish Presbyterians to impose their covenant on all Englishmen, then radical Protestants demands that Anglicans and Presbyterians be suppressed. Cromwell opened the door for Jews to return to England and winked at the private celebration of Catholic Mass. His only failing was his inability to persuade
a stubborn, conniving king to honor his obligations to Parliament and the people”.
Let’s ask the Irish about Cromwell…
Catherine’s official title is Her Royal Highness Princess William Arthur Philip Louis, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn, Baroness Carrickfergus.
She’ll be formally addressed as HRH The Duchess Of Cambridge, and everywhere else as Princess Catherine or Princess Kate.
Charles would have to upgrade his son to Prince of Wales - it doesn’t happen automatically.
Cromwell is one of the interesting figures in history (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Elizabeth I etc.) I would have liked to meet. His actions in Ireland were much maligned, both by Royalists at the time and by Irish Nationalists subsequently, for propaganda reasons.