The British Royals Message Board: Re: The Andrew Imbroglio

I believe that would be a mistake.
To me the UK citizens are fine with working Royals being HRH and having peerages but they don't feel it's fair or needed for those who are living a private life.
Now all Charles III did was respond to a deep disgust of the UK population towards his younger brother. He did not think as a head of a dynasty. That is not a good idea in my view. In it he resembles Beatrix of the Netherlands who as Head of the Royal House and the House of Orange-Nassau made some questionable choices in spite of her being an excelent Monarch.

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Like your thinking. Clearly that was a step too far for Charles. He cleaned up the biggest mess for his son and Harry might consider himself warned: if he remains silent and inconspicuous he can keep his titles for now. LP can be issued just as easily for him and his wife.

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I think HM could have gone about it differently. He now singled out Andrew where he could have opted for new Letters Patent where using HRH Prince(ss) and given peerages for Royals are linked to being a working Royal.
If he restricted those to the descendants of his mother it would have included Harry and Meghan and by restricting the princely title to the main line and making the grandchildren of the main line Lord/Lady. That would have set things up for William's younger children as well. The monarch could always choose to elevate some niece, nephew or cousin to HRH prince(ss) if they were needed for the monarchy in that way.

The effect would be the same: Andrew not being allowed to use the titles he legally has. It would also have prevented having to go down a similar path again with Harry and we've seen how much media attention that gets. So one clean sweep in modernising titles used by members of the Royal Family would have been a wiser choice in my view.

Limiting the HRH and princely title to children of the main line would fit in with the line taken in other monarchies.

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"Nobody is rejoicing." I'm sorry, John, but they are, including in posts on this site. I'm not making any judgement about that fact but, clearly, people are rejoicing.

I have not suggested that the Duke of York's misfortunes and those of his wife are not of their own making. Those factors are simply not relevant to the points that I wished to make. But I don't think that retreating into cliches such as "Enough is enough" is particularly illuminating. One of the points that I was trying to make and, clearly, I failed, was that royal status necessarily is linked to hereditary rights, not just to service and, in the king's case, certainly not to moral virtue. And I say that as someone who admires the King, the Queen and the Princess Royal.

I also agree that monarchies need to continue to update, but I'm not sure that that should include discarding the very principle on which monarchy (with the exception of the Papacy and Malaysia, should people believe that they are monarchies - I don't) actually rests, like discarding the hereditary principle.