The Queen intervened to overturn this historic rule which meant Prince Louis’s official name was changed.
Part and parcel of being a royal is following longstanding rules and conventions, from asking permission from the monarch to get married to not standing with your hands in your pockets if you’re a male member of the family.
But as time goes on, sometimes rules are changed or exceptions are made, often by the monarch themselves. And the late Queen Elizabeth intervened personally when her great-grandson Prince Louis was born to ensure that he had a royal title – changing a rule that had been in place for over 100 years in the process.
In 1917, the Queen’s grandfather, King George V, decided that only children of the sovereign, as well as grandchildren born to their sons, would become Princes or Princesses upon birth. But, when Prince William and Kate Middleton had their children, the Queen changed the rules.
Had she not, Louis would have had a different name, being known as Master Louis Cambridge when he was born, as his parents were the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the time, or Master Louis Windsor now.
While royals who have titles don’t generally use surnames, Louis and his siblings, Prince George and Princess Charlotte, go by William’s title as their surname at school.
The name Louis is popular in the Royal Family, and both William and George have it as one of their middle names, a nod to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Charles’s great-uncle and mentor, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1979. Louis’s middle names are Arthur and Charles, the former being a regal name that goes back centuries, and the latter, of course, being the name of his grandfather.
But while Louis’s name could be changed, there was controversy when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son Prince Archie was born in 2019 as the rule change did not apply to their children, Archie and Princess Lilibet, born in 2021.
Meghan told Oprah Winfrey in the couple’s 2021 interview, “They were saying they didn't want [Archie] to be a Prince or Princess, which would be different from protocol, and that he wasn't going to receive security. This went on for the last few months of our pregnancy where I was going, hold on for a second. They said [he's not going to get security], because he's not going to be a Prince.”
In other royal news, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are reportedly ‘shocked’ about the controversial reaction to their baby name and this is the relatable parenting dilemma revealed that forced Prince Harry to attend the Aviation Awards without his wife Meghan Markle.
