By Charles now issuing LP on titles going forward, it can be made clear that it will also apply to future children of Louis, so that would show that the changes are not racially motivated. It's sad that it needs to be pointed out, but apparently it does.
The interview with Oprah Winfrey proved that the existence of Letters Patent which also apply to other children is no shield against accusations of racial motivation.
That Archie was not made a prince at birth was due to the application of Letters Patent (1917) which had
already been applied to the children of Prince and Princess Arthur of Connaught, the children of the second Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the children of the second Duke and Duchess of Kent, and the children of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.
That is not even counting the numerous other children of princesses and princes who had not been made Princess/Prince themselves: Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor and Viscount Severn, Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, August Brooksbank, the Earl of Snowdon and Lady Sarah Chatto, and so on.
If it is his intention to deprive Harry's children of the Prince/Princess title, then he needs to man up and do it out in the open. They have not been known as such yet, so the loss will be minimal to them in the long run. Leaving the matter up in the air like this only legitimizes H&M's claims that it's something that is racially based if no other explanation is offered by BP.
I am not sure how depriving the children of the Prince/Princess title "out in the open" would delegitimize the duchess's claim that their not being made Prince/Princess was based on race.
As seen in the transcript you quoted, her claim in the 2021 interview was about the simple fact that "they didn't want to make Archie a prince", not whether the decision was made openly or quietly.
Oprah: You certainly must have had some conversations with Harry about it and have your own suspicions as to why they didn’t want to make Archie a prince. What are . . . what are those thoughts? Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s because of his race?
Meghan: (Sighs)
Oprah: And I know that’s a loaded question, but . . .
Meghan: But I can give you an honest answer. In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time . . . so 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.
Between here and the Danish forum, I feel like I've become the patron saint of second sons and their children's titles. I hate to see these monarchs endanger their relationships with their grandchildren by dealing with their titles in ham-handed manners.
The "ham-handed manner" of the Queen of Denmark was primarily about her insufficient, impersonal communication with her son and mature grandchildren ahead of her actions. The King of Great Britain seemingly let his wish to slim down prince/ssly titles become known through informal leaks many years before his son was even engaged (as you said, "Everyone knows that it has been Charles' wish all along that the monarchy become slimmed down"), and apparently held multiple personal conversations with his son and daughter-in-law about his plans for prince/princess titles before their first child was even born (based on the implications of the Oprah interview). His apparent conduct in this matter has been just the opposite of the Queen of Denmark's.
I don’t think he’ll ever issue the LP. Usually their LPs are “from now forward”, not affecting those who are already HRH. Like it happened with the succesion law, Princess Anne didn’t change place in the LoS, it started with George.
Now, if not for the thorny subject of the children’s race (I hope I’m not offending), I believe The Queen would have already issued an LP to say HRH is limited to the direct line: monarch’s children, heir’s children, heir’s firstborn’s children. Were it Cressida instead of Meghan, I have no doubt HLM would have done it before any pregnancy announcement.
For Charles to do it now it would mean either to say “from now forward” and implicitly confirm Archie and Lili are HRH, or to strip them. And in all fairness he should also strip Bea, Eugenie, the Kents and the Gloucesters. So he’ll leave it for William when the time comes.
I vehemently oppose any retroactive stripping of titles as it just seems to be a mechanism in response to poor planning on the part of the monarch. They should concern themselves with looking towards the future and not attempt to change the past.
I don't think anybody has suggested a retroactive stripping that attempts to change the past. At most, some posters have suggested that King Charles might strip the Prince/Princess titles from the Kents, Gloucesters, York princesses and (arguably) Wessex and Sussex children with effect from now forward, as Ghost said, not retroactively.
No they were not entitled to Prince/Princess at birth, which is why it would have been better to issue the LP then instead of waiting for this mess to spiral if the intention was to slim down the monarchy.
Yes, but as you know, Charles was powerless to issue LPs when the children were born, as he was not the monarch at the time. He cannot be faulted for that.
The current method of the Palace seems to be rather effective. It's also noteworthy that of all the Sussex complaints, since Oprah, neither of them has mentioned the titles at all. Clearly it's something Harry and Meghan are not eager to raise, even though they bring up being hard-done by about everything else.
Yes, I find it very interesting that most of the posters here (including myself) expected that very soon after his accession the king would be forced by his son and daughter-in-law and the British or American media to publicly address the children's titles one way or the other and receive a great deal of negative publicity either way, but to our surprise, he has managed to keep the children's title issue out of the headlines for the last four months, and most of the British newspapers have followed his lead in continuing to refer to the children as plain Archie and Lilibet.