Saturday 30 April 2011

“Princess Catherine” and more

Upon marriage yesterday Catherine Middleton became a Royal Highness, a Princess of the United Kingdom, Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn and Baroness Carrickfergus, but as she is not a princess by birth she will not be styled “Princess Catherine”. If Prince William had not been given a peerage, his wife would officially have been styled “Princess William of Wales”, but now she will be officially styled “the Duchess of Cambridge”. However, according to the Daily Telegraph, the court said last night that it will be “acceptable” for the public to refer to her as “Princess Catherine”.
Prince Charles’s communications secretary, Paddy Harverson, said: “I think it’s absolutely natural that the public might want to call them Prince William and Princess Catherine and no one is going to have any argument with that”.
It is on the other hand pure nonsense when the Daily Mail claims that Prince William will one day “inherit” the title Prince of Wales (the title is not hereditary and he will have to be created Prince of Wales when he becomes first in line to the throne) and that Catherine will then be officially “recognised as Princess Catherine”. Although colloquially known as “Princess Diana”, that was never the title of Prince William’s mother, who was officially “Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales” while married and “Diana, Princess of Wales” after the divorce.
While it took the Swedish court two days to include Prince Daniel on their website following his wedding to Crown Princess Victoria last year, the British royal website was updated with a new section on the Duchess of Cambridge (external link) already last night. They have however forgotten to update the section on her husband, which still says that “Prince William's full title is His Royal Highness Prince William of Wales KG”.
Today Buckingham Palace has also released for editorial use three official wedding photos, taken in the Throne Room yesterday by Hugo Burnand.

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