Why are the children of HM The Queen “HRH” while the children of HRH Princess Margaret are not?
The children of HM The Queen (Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward) are styled HRH because they are children of the sovereign, a queen. Their style and title are allowed to them as children of the sovereign. The children of HRH Princess Margaret (David and Sarah) are not HRH because princesses do not usually transmit their titles to their children. Instead, David and Sarah’s names and titles come to them from their father, the Earl of Snowdon. As children of a peer, David is allowed the courtesy use of his father’s subsidiary title of Viscount Linley, while Sarah is allowed the use of the prefix ‘Lady’ before her Christian name followed by her surname. The children of HRH Princess Anne (Peter and Zara) and HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent (James and Marina) are in a similar situation as those of HRH Princess Margaret. They are the children of a royal mother but take their rank from their father. There has been one exception to this rule in this century. On 9 November 1905, King Edward VII be
