03 September 2023 , 15:40
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Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet may have royal titles but they are facing an isolated upbringing outside of the royal family.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their intention to use their children’s royal titles when Lilibet was christened in Los Angeles earlier this year. Although the four-year-old prince and two-year-old princess have royal titles - they will never know the same world as their older cousins George, 10, Charlotte, eight, and Louis, five.
Princess Diana’s former butler and confidant Paul Burrell exclusively tells The Mirror, that the Californian royals will find the separation “confusing” as they grow older. “They might not know quite who they are,” Burrell says. ‘They're a prince and princess living in America. Sounds like a movie doesn't it?”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet at their California home (alexilubomirski/Instagram)
Princess Diana's confidant Paul Burrell worries about her grandchildren's future (STEVE ALLEN)After their parents broke away from the royal family, the young royals didn’t attend the coronation of their grandfather King Charles III in May and stayed home in America with their mother. The proud grandfather was said to be “very emotional” when he met his granddaughter Lilibet for the very first time at the queen’s Platinum Jubilee. But heartbreakingly hasn’t seen her since.
Harry and Meghan are trying to keep the children’s grandmother’s memory alive as they revealed that a framed picture of Princess Diana hangs in their nursery. “Who's that? Grandma? Yeah. It's your Grandma Diana," Meghan cooed to baby Archie in their Netflix docuseries.
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But Burrell thinks telling the children stories about their grandmother will only raise questions and lead to “confusion” about their place in the distant royal family that lies across the Atlantic. “I think that Archie and Lilibet will say, 'Well why aren't we part of that world? We're prince and princess, and we should be part of the royal family.'” Burrell says. “That's a big question for your children to ask you when you decided you don't want to be part of that world.”
Prince Harry and Meghan will be telling their children stories about their grandmother Princess Diana (Getty Images)What’s more, Meghan is estranged from her side of the family except her mother Doria Ragland, so Archie and Lilibet don’t have many relations. Burrell thinks it’s “unfair” that the children have been “cast out” and won’t grow up with the love and protection of their extended family. “I think it's unfair in many ways that the children have been cast out, as well as the parents,” he says. “Because the children didn't choose to be cast out. The parents chose for them.”
Harry has a close bond with his cousins Beatrice and Eugenie fostered on family ski holidays and a lasting friendship with Zara and her husband Mike Tindall as they bonded at royal events and charity polo matches. And Burrell thinks it’s a “great shame” that little Lilibet and Archie will “never know” their cousins in the same way.
“What Harry and Meghan have done in fact is deny them of their heritage,” he says. “And I think that by the time they're 18, they'll turn to Meghan and Harry and say, 'Why weren't we part of that? Why didn't we experience that? Why don't we know our cousins? Why don't we know this world which is half ours? There comes a dilemma.”