King Charles and Prince William declined an invitation to attend the California christening of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s daughter.
Last week, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had Lilibet christened at their Montecito home, using the occasion to officially start calling the one-year-old ‘Princess’. The couple has also now begun calling their son Prince.
American sources claimed Queen Camilla and Kate were invited to the service along with the King and William.
Buckingham Palace declined to confirm today, saying it was a private family matter.
An insider told the Mirror: “To have the two most senior royals and their wives fly to the States for Lilibet’s christening would have been a massive operation both in terms of security and planning.
“Under the cardinal rule for royal travel, Charles and William cannot fly together so it would have needed at least two flights to have them attend.
“Although relations between the Sussex’s and their family are at rock bottom, the royals have always maintained the children should not suffer.”
The move to start using the titles came exactly two years after the couple’s bombshell interview with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey during which they commented Archie was not given the title of Prince because of his race.
The claim, which included an allegation a senior royal questioned what colour their then unborn son’s skin would be, sent shockwaves worldwide, sparking a bitter backlash against The Firm.
Three days after the Winfrey interview aired on March 8, 2021, Prince William staunchly defended his family, saying they are “very much not a racist family” in response to a question about allegations made by Meghan.
Confirming last Friday’s christening and the use of her royal tiles, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex said: “I can confirm that Princess Lilibet Diana was christened on Friday, March 3, by the Archbishop of Los Angeles, the Reverend John Taylor.”
Until now, the King had not formally confirmed that the Sussex’s children would use the titles of Prince and Princess.
Today, the Royal family ’s website still listed them as sixth and seventh in the line of succession, referring to them as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor. It was an issue said to have particularly irked the Sussexes.
The source added: “It's no secret among their friends Harry and Megah was frustrated that Buckingham Palace failed to immediately recognise Archie and Lilibet’s elevated status on its website.“
It was compounded further when the Prince and Princess of Wales’s titles, and those of their children, were swiftly changed following the Queen’s death in September.”
As children of His Majesty’s son, Archie and Lilibet are automatically Prince and Princess and would otherwise be entitled to be styled His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness.
But they are unable to use their HRH titles as they would take them from their father, whose own HRH title was dropped by the Queen in January 2020.
Despite Meghan’s claims during her Winfrey interview, her children could not become Prince or Princess until their grandfather became monarch.
When Archie was born seventh in line to the throne in May 2019, he was too far down the line of succession.
Although he was a great-grandchild of the monarch, he was not a first-born son of a future king, so was not automatically a prince.
It was only following the death of Queen Elizabeth last September that Archie, three, and Lilibet, 21 months, were afforded the titles under rules set out by King George V in 1917.
A royal source tonight confirmed Charles has been notified of Harry and Meghan’s intention to use the titles for their children, adding: “The appropriate conversations took place ahead of Lilibet’s christening.”
It is in stark contrast to Prince Edward and Sophie, Countess of Wessex’s children Viscount James and Lady Louise.
They would also be entitled for similar titles, as grandchildren of the sovereign to use the titles, but their parents decided they did not wish them to be known as Prince and Princess.
The Buckingham Palace website is to be updated accordingly in due course to reflect Archie and Lilibet’s title.
Sources suggested that the delay was simply because they had been waiting to hear what the Sussexes had wanted to do.
A spokesperson said: “As the duke and duchess have now confirmed this, the website will now be updated in due course.”
An insider told how around 25 people guests attended Friday’s ceremony.
The duke, 38, and duchess, 41, were joined by Archie, Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland, Lili’s godfather Tyler Perry, an unnamed godmother and between 20 and 30 close friends.
It is unknown if Meghan’s estranged father, Thomas Markle, 78, was invited, although sources told the Mirror he was not.
After the ceremony, guests were said to have enjoyed an afternoon of food and dancing at the couple’s £11.2 million home.
The couple’s statement confirming Lilibet’s christening referred to Reverend Taylor as the Archbishop of Los Angeles - but he is actually the Bishop of Los Angeles in the Episcopal Church in the US, which is part of the global Anglican Communion.
The Archbishop of Los Angeles is the Most Reverend José H. Gomez, who leads the US’s most prominent Catholic community.
Taylor is a former newspaper reporter who was chief of staff for former US president Richard Nixon. He was a reporter and editor for the twice-weekly Chula Vista Star News in the 1970s.
Nixon, who died in 1994, was the 37th president of the US and the only one to resign from office, following the Watergate scandal.
A profile in the Los Angeles Times described Bishop Taylor as one of Nixon’s closest confidants in later years and as co-executor of his estate. He was also director of the Nixon library.
Nixon - a republican - used to call Bishop Taylor “our House liberal”.
He was the former president’s researcher and editorial assistant, before becoming his chief of staff between 1984 and 1990 before being ordained as a priest in 2004.
Nixon resigned in 1974 after he was implicated in the Watergate scandal following a cover-up when five men connected with his election campaign team were arrested after a break-in at at the offices of the Democratic Party’s national headquarters.
Bishop Taylor was elected as the seventh bishop of Los Angeles to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in December 2016 and took office in December 2017.
He is a father of four and a grandfather of two.
The diocese’s website says he has “devoted himself to promoting reconciliation, transparency”.
It adds: “In those called to leadership in the church, whether lay or ordained, he encourages the exercise of empathy and curiosity as tools of evangelism, to enrich relationships and build new ones across the barriers of difference and prejudice according to race, language, geography, orientation, identification, age, and socioeconomics.”
