Why King Charles is powerless to remove Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal titles

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle may have quit royal life five years ago, but they have still been able to keep their royal titles. While they can no longer use their Her Royal Highness and His Royal Highness titles - a decision made in 2020 - they are still able to call themselves the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

This Sussex title was given to the couple as a personal gift by Queen Elizabeth II on their wedding day. While the Royal Family have shown no ambition to take Harry and Meghan’s Sussex title from them, royal fans have frequently called for this on a number of occasions in which the couple have spoken negatively about the royals. However, King Charles - despite being monarch - is powerless to take the Sussex title from the royals for one reason.

This is because the Dukedom was a personal gift from the late Queen and would require legislative action through an act of Parliament.

A royal expert said as Harry, 40, is a prince by birth, he would still be entitled to use the title of prince - even if the Sussex title was taken from him.

Speaking to The Royal Beat, Ingrid Seward, Editor in Chief of Majesty Magazine, said: "I don’t think anything will happen to the titles because, if they lose their titles, Harry is still a prince of the blood and Meghan instead of being the Duchess of Sussex, [would] be Princess Henry. That really would [confuse the Americans].

"I think [it’s] probably best just to leave it because it looks unkind, it looks unnecessary.”

The expert continued: "The (late) Queen gave them the titles, let them keep them - they’re going to be ‘H and M’ anyway.

"I think the best thing is to leave them, ignore them, and let them get on with it - which is really what the Palace and the Royal Family are doing."

Despite no longer being a working royal, Meghan did speak about the Sussex name in her Netflix series 'With Love, Meghan', mentioning how important it is to her from a personal point of view.

When called Meghan Markle by her friend and American actress Mindy Kaling, the duchess, 40, replied: "It's so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I'm Sussex now.

"You have kids, and you go, 'no 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 also told People: "It’s our shared name as a family, and I guess I hadn’t recognised how meaningful that would be to me until we had children. I love that that is something that Archie, Lili, H and I all have together. It means a lot to me."