What Diana’s brother told Prince Harry about using the Spencer name
By Albert Tait
London: Prince Harry asked Princess Diana’s brother about changing his family name to Spencer, according to reports.
During a rare visit to Britain, Harry is said to have sought advice from his uncle, Earl Spencer, about whether to assume his mother’s surname. It would have meant dropping his current family name, Mountbatten-Windsor, which is used by his children, Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 3.
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, 40, was advised against the move by the earl, 61, because of the legal hurdles, according to the Mail on Sunday.
“They had a very amicable conversation and Spencer advised him against taking such a step,” a friend of Harry’s told the newspaper.
Earl Spencer, the brother of Princess Diana, with her son, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex.Credit: AP
Mountbatten-Windsor is the surname available to descendants of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. It combines the British royal family’s house name of Windsor and Philip’s adopted surname of Mountbatten.
Harry’s apparent desire to abandon the name speaks to the growing rift with his family.
An interview with the BBC last month, in which he made a series of comments about the royal family, is understood to have deepened the divide between Buckingham Palace and him and his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
On their birth certificates, the couple’s children are Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
‘Official surname’
However, it was revealed last year, they had started using “Sussex” as the official surname for their children.
The royal family name of Windsor was confirmed by the Queen following her accession to the throne in 1952.
But in 1960, Elizabeth and Phillip, then Duke of Edinburgh, elected for their direct descendants to carry the name Mountbatten-Windsor. This meant that when the Queen’s children needed to declare a surname, it would be Mountbatten-Windsor.
Mountbatten-Windsor first appeared on an official document on November 14, 1973, upon the marriage of Anne, the Princess Royal, and Captain Mark Phillips.
A spokesman for the prince did not comment.
The Telegraph, London
Make the most of your health, relationships, fitness and nutrition with our Live Well newsletter. Get it in your inbox every Monday.