Buckingham Palace went on a briefing spree on Wednesday when People Magazine broke the news about Princess Lilibet Diana’s Montecito christening. In the reporting and the statement from the Sussexes’ spokesperson, Lilibet and Archie’s princess and prince titles were used. Because they’ve been Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet this whole time, ever since QEII passed away. All of the breast-beating about “confusion over the titles” was manufactured solely by King Charles’s court. Charles’s people were openly briefing everyone that Lili and Archie’s titles were a bargaining chip and Charles was going to “decide” what would happen. Granted, Charles could choose to change the Letters Patent. But he hasn’t, so here we are. Over the past 24 hours, the British media has had to eat sh-t about their manufactured “confusion” over the titles. Which has led to some fascinatingly weird reporting. From the Telegraph:

Confusion!! The subject of Archie and Lilibet’s titles has caused much confusion since the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September amid claims that the King was undecided about whether they should use them. The Royal family’s website, which lists them as sixth and seventh in the line of succession, still refers to them as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor and Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor.

Oh, the titles are connected to the Frogmore eviction?? The Sussexes made the decision to use the titles last year, it is understood. However, they were only informed that the Royal family’s website would be updated at the beginning of this month. They were told after it emerged they had been asked to vacate Frogmore Cottage, their Windsor home, and that the Duke of York had been offered the keys. It will be interpreted by many as an olive branch from the King to the couple who had not been told in advance that Prince Andrew had been asked to move in.

Why didn’t the palace change Archie & Lili’s titles on the website last September? Sources close to the Sussexes had suggested they were frustrated that Buckingham Palace had failed to immediately recognise Archie and Lilibet’s elevated status on its website, not least as the Prince and Princess of Wales’s titles, and those of their children, were swiftly changed. However, as children of His Majesty’s son, they automatically became Prince and Princess on his accession.

Again with the “in abeyance” stuff: In other circumstances, they would also have been entitled to be styled His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness but are prevented from doing so because their own father’s HRH title is in abeyance. The HRH titles of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were not affected when the Duke of York’s title was put into abeyance because they have had them since birth, palace sources said.

The Sussexes’ decision, y’all: The Sussexes have been in recent communication with Buckingham Palace on the issue and the Royal family’s website is expected to be updated accordingly in due course. The palace suggested that the delay was simply down to the fact that it had been waiting for the Sussexes to make a decision about the titles.

[From The Telegraph]

Please follow this: The Sussexes made the decision to allow their kids to use their titles last year, but then the Sussexes were only told that the palace would update the website earlier this month at the same time they were informed that they were evicted from Frogmore and that Prince Andrew was being offered their home, and this is King Charles’s benevolent olive branch??? None of this makes any sense, honestly.

My theory is that Harry wanted Lili to be christened in Windsor for a while and was trying to arrange it for much of the past year, only to be roadblocked by his violent psycho brother and his dogsh-t father. Royal peeps usually don’t wait until their child is close to two years old to hold the christening – there was a hold up somewhere, and these are my suspicions. So Harry and Meghan finally just made the arrangements in Montecito, did their due diligence and invited his dogsh-t family and then they had the no-drama christening of their dreams in complete privacy. As for the titles, I think Harry was waiting to see what his father would do or say and then Harry was like “f–k it, I dare you to strip my kids of their titles.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Netflix.