King Charles cannot rest easily since his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Lilibeth, are once again in doubt.

 

With tensions escalating into a transatlantic drama, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are once again at the centre of royal controversy, this time over something as trivial as passports. Buckingham Palace and insiders close to King Charles and Prince William have responded sharply to the situation. Citing an unexpected long-term objective, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex allegedly began a battle to secure new passports for their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. The motivation, according to a friend of the couple who spoke to The Guardian, is so that “when they grow older, they can decide for themselves whether they want to become working royals or stay out of public life.”

 

Behind the scenes, the royals reportedly met the Sussexes’ ambitions with ridicule and disbelief. According to The Daily Mail, King Charles found it “incredulous and bemusing, to say the least,” that Harry and Meghan truly believed their children could ever grow into roles as working royals.

 

A palace source added that Charles views Archie and Lilibet’s future as being tied far more closely to Hollywood than to Windsor, given the couple’s dramatic 2020 exit and subsequent media ventures portraying the monarchy as dysfunctional for financial gain.

 

The couple, who currently reside in California, allegedly accused King Charles of deliberately slow-walking acceptance of the papers, which led to delays and issues in the procedure. But in a harsh and forceful reaction, Buckingham Palace denied that the King had become involved. The Palace’s response was clear: “King Charles, fighting cancer and ruling a whole monarchy, has better and more important matters to handle than meddling in passport applications.”Prince William’s response was even more incisive. “William is obviously not going to hire Archie and Lilibet,” a source close to the Prince of Wales reportedly told Tom Sykes of The Daily Beast. Harry and Meghan are merely engaging in trolling.” William has long stated that Archie and Lilibet’s royal titles may be withdrawn upon his accession to the throne, according to royal analyst Richard Eden’s Daily Mail story. “From what I am told, the removal of Archie and Lilibet’s HRHs could be part of a wider ‘slimming down’ of the Monarchy when William becomes King,” Eden said. It is not anticipated that King Charles will get involved. According to sources, the monarch considers the decisions made by his son and daughter-in-law to be definitive.