Prince William’s frosty relationship with Prince Harry is currently showing no signs of thawing and the distance between them has affected his bonds with his nephew Prince Archie and niece Princess Lilibet too. It’s believed the Prince of Wales hasn’t actually met five-year-old Lili yet and he hasn’t seen seven-year-old Archie since 2019.
They might reunite now the Sussexes are living in the UK again but however things play out, Prince William will still have final say over one of the Sussex children’s biggest life milestones. Everyone loves a royal wedding but if Archie and Lilibet want to get married during William’s reign – which is more likely given how young they are now – they’ll have to get their uncle’s permission first.
When the Prince of Wales becomes King everyone will move up one place in the royal line of succession, making Prince Archie fifth and Princess Lilibet sixth. Since the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, the top six royals in line to the British throne have to receive the monarch’s formal consent to get married.
Prince Harry explained this in Spare and described how he approached Queen Elizabeth in 2017 to get her permission to marry Meghan. In his view, it “didn’t make any sense” that a grown man had to do this, but he followed the rules.
“I’ve been told that I have to ask your permission before I can propose,” he began, to which she replied, “You have to?”, then added, “Well then, I suppose I have to say yes.”
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Harry was confused at first, writing, “I didn’t get it. Was she being sarcastic? Ironic? Deliberately cryptic? Was she indulging in a bit of wordplay? I’d never known Granny to do any wordplay and this would be a surpassingly bizarre moment (not to mention widely inconvenient) for her to start, but maybe she just saw the chance to play off my unfortunate use of the word ‘have’.”
The Duke of Sussex then realised the Queen had said “yes” and he later went on to propose to Meghan. One day his children will probably have to ask William for consent to marry and if Harry thought it made no sense to ask his grandmother, just imagine how he might feel about Archie and Lili approaching his brother for permission.
Although it’s unlikely that Prince William would say no to them, he’ll still technically have the power to make that call. If a royal marries without the monarch’s consent then they and their descendants are removed from the succession altogether.
This would be quite a shake-up and it’s also been suggested that Prince William could be willing to strip Archie and Lili’s titles when he’s King. They’re the children of non-working royals and are unlikely to ever work for The Firm themselves, so their titles aren’t exactly crucial to their roles and some have even suggested Harry and Meghan’s titles might be at risk too.
Royal biographer Duncan Larcombe previously claimed in Woman that losing his title would be a “bitter blow” for Harry and suggested Archie and Lilibet “could become the innocent victims of any move by William to disassociate himself from his brother”.
Whatever happens, their titles will likely be, like the children’s future marriages, left in William’s hands.