Prince Harry’s investigation into changing his family name to Spencer will have left his father, Prince Charles, “deeply hurt,” a veteran royal expert has suggested.
The Duke of Sussex, 40, was revealed to have sought to drop his current surname, Mountbatten-Windsor, and replace it with his mother Princess Diana’s maiden name.
Harry is said to have broached the idea with his uncle, Earl Charles Spencer, during a trip to the UK - who warned him the legal challenges of such a move would be “insurmountable”.
More than any legal questions, royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams has said King Charles will be greatly wounded by his son’s attempts to change his family name.
Prince Harry's attempt to change his family name to Spencer will have left King Charles 'very hurt,' an expert has said
PA / Getty
“Someone’s family name is a pivotal and public link to the other family members,” Fitzwilliams told The Express.
Harry’s desire to drop a name shared by his father and brother Prince William among other members of the Royal Family would therefore have been a “clear gesture of enmity”.
The expert believed the news would have come as a “deeply hurtful” revelation to Charles.
Fitzwilliams analysed this would be especially so as it would have been a “very public renunciation of the Royal Family” so soon after Charles ascended to the throne as King.
Fitzwilliams said the move would have been a 'very public renunciation of the Royal Family'
Getty
“The King will be appalled that his youngest son has considered such a drastic step,” the royal expert continued.
He added that the move will have only served to “widen the royal rift” between Harry and the rest of the Royal Family since he and his wife, Meghan Markle, stepped down as working royals in 2020.
The name Mountbatten-Windsor is said to be cherished by King Charles as it had been by his late father, Prince Philip.
It combines the Royal Family's name of Windsor, changed from the historic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1917, and the former Duke of Edinburgh's adopted surname.
The late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip deiced Mountbatten-Windsor would be the surname give to their direct descendents
Getty
Mountbatten as a royal surname originates with the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who was a mentor to Philip and a close confidant of his great-nephew and the-then Prince of Wales, King Charles.
Philip took on the Mountbatten name when he renounced his Greek and Danish royal titles and became a naturalised British subject in 1947.
In 1960, the late Queen Elizabeth II and Philip decided that Mountbatten-Windsor would be the surname given to their direct decedents.
On their birth certificates, Harry's children are listed as Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
LATEST ROYAL NEWS:
The revelation will apparently only 'widen the rift' between Harry and the Royal Family
PA
However, it was revealed last year that they had started using "Sussex" as the official surname for their children.
In an episode of her Netflix show With Love, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex insisted "I share my name with my children.".
"I didn't know how meaningful it would be to me but it just means so much to go 'This is OUR family name. Our little family name,'" she said.
This latest revelation has added further strain on what remains of Harry and Meghan's relationship with the Royal Family.
In an April interview with the BBC, Harry made several comments about King Charles ad the family which is understood to have deepened the divide between Buckingham Palace.
Most Read
