In the now infamous Oprah interview, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex fumbled royal protocol. What is the real reason behind Archie’s lack of title?
In 1917, King George V of the United Kingdom was faced with a conundrum. As the grandson of Queen Victoria, he had relatives across the various thrones of Europe. Unfortunately, those same relatives were creating headaches due to World War I. The primary offender? His maternal first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Both grandsons of Queen Victoria, they were now sworn enemies. George’s heritage was as German as Wilhelm, and many of his subjects were noticing. They were suspicious that their own royal family were loyal to Germany above the United Kingdom. To placate his subjects’ growing fears, King George reformed the royal family.
The first order of duty was to abandon the family’s German name. As the grandson of Prince Albert, the royal family was by patrilineal descent, the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, named after Albert’s German duchy. This Teutonic name was entirely inappropriate for a British family. After consulting with advisors, George elected to call his family a new name: Windsor, named after their primary castle.
George also cut down on the numerous princes that were tied to the crown. Victoria had produced a prodigious number of…
