Avenging Diana is behind William's crackdown on HRH titles, writes Shelagh Fogarty

There are a number of royals who could be in line to lose their HRH titles, such as his brother Harry who is no longer a working royal.

But I doubt he'll go after Harry.

He could certainly go for the Duchess of Sussex. But maybe they come as a package.

The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh are working royals - so I guess under William's reign, they would keep that.

But you look at others like Eugenie and Beatrice - should they have an HRH title?

I think partly what motivates William in all of this - the questioning around the size of the royal family and the list of people with HRH titles - is actually his mother Diana, who had her HRH title removed in 1996.

This could be William's way of avenging his mother.

The revenge of Diana.

Queen Elizabeth II issued Letters Patent in 1996, which declared that a former wife of a son of a Sovereign was not entitled to hold the style of HRH. This applied to both Diana and Sarah Ferguson.

I happen to think that it was wrong to strip Diana of her HRH title for a number of reasons.

It was not just because of who she had been married to and who she was the mother of.

But she put over a decade of her life into that institution, gave it two heirs, essentially an heir and a spare, as they say, and lit it up again.

If you're the same age as me, you'll remember that.

Diana completely lit up the Royal family when she arrived, right from the beginning, and then as she matured into a more grown woman - because she was only just out of teenhood when she became Princess of Wales.

If you look at the way she performed that role, it was sublime, absolutely excellent.

Clearly, the undercurrent was all the distress between her and Charles and the infidelity on both sides. And then came the divorce and Panorama and all the rest of it, which is probably what lost her the HRH.

But ultimately, I think it was a mistake on the part of the royals.

I can see why William would want to look at some of these other royals who've done nothing compared to Diana and strip them of their HRH.

I suspect 'Diana's revenge' is a big part of William's desire to cut back the use of HRH titles - not just because of Andrew.

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