February 8, 1960: Creation of the Surname Mountbatten-Windsor.

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1917 Letter's Patent, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, Duke of Edinburgh, House of Windsor, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Mountbatten-Windsor, Queen Elizabeth II, The Duke of Sussex

Mountbatten-Windsor is the personal surname used by some of the male-line descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Under a declaration made in Privy Council on February 8, 1960, the name Mountbatten-Windsor applies to male-line descendants of the Queen without royal styles and titles. Individuals with royal styles do not usually use a surname, but some descendants of the Queen with royal styles have used Mountbatten-Windsor when a surname was required.

The British monarchy asserts that the name Mountbatten-Windsor is used by members of the Royal Family who do not have a surname, when a surname is required. For example, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Anne, Princess Royal, children of the Queen, used the surname Mountbatten-Windsor in official marriage registry entries in 1986 and 1973 respectively. Likewise, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, used the name when filing a French lawsuit related to the topless pictures of his wife published by the French magazine Closer.

At the time of the 1960 declaration, palace officials claimed in private communications that it created a hidden surname that would emerge several generations later when some of Queen Elizabeth II’s descendants were further removed from the throne. On the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones in 1999, the Queen decided, with their agreement, that any children they might have should not be styled His or Her Royal Highness. Consequently, the birth of their daughter in 2003 marked the first emergence of the Mountbatten-Windsor surname. Their daughter was named Louise Alice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor, although she goes by the courtesy title of Lady Louise Windsor, her father being the Earl of Wessex.

Mountbatten-Windsor differs from the official name of the British royal family, which remains the House of Windsor. In accordance with law and custom in the English-speaking world, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor belongs to all male-line descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, and is used by them if and when a surname is needed. Other descendants of King George V, the first monarch of the House of Windsor, use Windsor as their surname if and when a surname is needed: for example, descendants of the King’s sons Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Prince George, Duke of Kent. The King’s other two sons, King Edward VIII and Prince John, left no descendants.

Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor is the son of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and is the first descendant of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to use the Mountbatten-Windsor surname.

A great-grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor is seventh in the line of succession to the British throne. He is also heir apparent to his father’s Dukedom of Sussex, Earldom of Dumbarton, and Barony of Kilkeel.

Under the terms of the Letters Patent issued by King George V in 1917 – the sons and daughters of sovereigns and the male-line grandchildren of sovereigns are entitled to the title of Princes/Princess with the style of Royal Highness. The Letters Patent in 1917 also included the eldest son of the eldest living son of the Prince of Wales – but was amended by Letters Patent by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012 prior to the birth of Prince George of Cambridge so that all the children of the eldest living son of the Prince of Wales would bear royal rank.

As The Duke of Sussex is not the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, his son is neither a British prince nor does he have the style Royal Highness, which is the gift of the Queen (usually acting on the wishes of the child’s parents). There was the option of using Prince Harry’s subsidiary title of Earl of Dumbarton, as a courtesy, but Meghan and Harry decided instead that he would be styled as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, in accordance with their wish that he grow up as a private citizen.

When the Prince of Wales becomes King, Archie then will become the grandson of the sovereign and he will technically be entitled to the title of Prince with the style of Royal Highness. However, the Prince of Wales has stated the desire to trim down the number of working members of the Royal Family, and with the desire that Archie grow up as a private citizen, his obtaining the style and title is highly unlikely. I suspect a new set of Letters Patent once the Prince of Wales becomes King, replacing the 1917 Letters Patent.

Will the children of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have titles?

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Elizabeth II, House of Windsor, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Meghan Markle, Mountbatten-Windsor, Prince Harry, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, The Duke of Sussex

This past October Kensington Palace announced that HRH The Duchess of Sussex was pregnant. Seeing that she is due to deliver her child anytime from mid-April to early May I’d like to discuss and clear up any confusion to what titles the baby will have…if any.

Their Royal Hignesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

Under the provisions of the 1917 Letter’s Patent any children born to the Royal Couple during the life time of the Queen will NOT have a royal title. Under the provisions of the 1917 Letter’s Patent the royal title is limited to the grandchildren of the sovereign in the male line. The Duke and Duchess’ child will be great-grandchildren in the male line of the sovereign thus making them ineligible for a title.

However, if the child is a boy he will be called the Earl of Dumbarton since the Earldom of Dumbarton is a secondary title of the Duke of Sussex. The eldest son of a duke, marquess or earl almost always uses one of his father’s subsidiary titles as a courtesy title; for instance, the eldest son of the Earl of Wessex is called Viscount Severn. Generally, the practice of using a secondary title as a courtesy title for the heir to a noble title is applied to non-royal nobles. Since the eldest son of the Earl of Wessex does not have a title he is granted the use of a courtesy title. This will be the case if the son of the Duke of Sussex remains non-royal. In the case of Royals with a dukedom (the Duke of Cambridge for example) the heir to the title, Prince George in this case, uses “of Cambridge” as a territorial designation instead of Earl of Strathearn his father’s secondary title.

A male child will also be in line to inherit his father’s dukedom. Royal dukedoms are hereditary, according to the terms of the letters patent that created them, which usually contain the standard remainder to the “heirs male of his body”. However, if a male child of the Duke of Sussex remains without a royal title then the Dukedom of Sussex will cease to be a royal Dukedom once this child succeeds to the title.

The original 1917 Act only provided a title for a great-grandchild in the male line of the sovereign when that child is the eldest son, of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. In this instance, Prince George of Cambridge is again a good example.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and family.

The Queen issued new Letters Patent on December 31, 2012 declaring that all of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children will have the style of Royal Highness and be titled Princes and Princesses. The document states, “The QUEEN has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated December 31, 2012 to declare that all the children of the eldest son of The Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of Royal Highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour.” This is how the siblings of Prince George of Cambridge, Charlotte and Louis, were able to be granted the style Royal Highness and Prince or Princess of the United Kingdom.

It is my understanding that this amendment of the 1917 Letters Patent wasn’t just for the children of the Duke of Cambridge but also for any children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales in the future, if ever the same circumstances arises.

The Queen could do something similar with the children of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex. As the font of all honors Her Majesty is allowed to further amend the 1917 Act. However, in the long run it won’t be necessary when the Prince of Wales come to the throne. Any children born to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex that are born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II will automatically gain the style Royal Highness and the title Prince/Princess of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when the Queen passes away; for they will no longer be great-grandchildren of the sovereign, they will be the grandchildren of the new sovereign, King Charles III.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex

That is how things stand of today but they could change. I have encountered some people that believe the Queen will create Letters Patent granting the Royal Style and Title to the children of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. The Queen issued Letters Patent granting that all of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s children will have the title of Royal Highness and be styled Princes and Princess on December 31, 2012, a full seven months before the birth of Prince George of Cambridge. It is of my opinion that if the Queen was going to create Letters Patent granting the Royal style and title to the children of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex she would have done it by now. It is possible she will create new Letters Patent for the Sussex baby and I could be wrong.

What I report next are rumors that haven’t been verified but are worth mentioning. There has been talk that when the Prince of Wales becomes king he desires to trim down the numbers of working royals. Also, I have heard that the Duke of Sussex, similar to the Earl of Wessex, desires that their children not be given a Royal title so they can be raised away from the limelight in order for them to have as normal of a life as possible. If any of that is true the Prince of Wales, as King, my create his own Letters Patent that replaces the 1917 Letters Patent restructuring the Royal Family and limiting titles.

HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

One thing is certain, whether boy or girl, the Baby of the Duke & Duchess of Sussex will be the FIRST to be officially surnamed Mountbatten-Windsor, per the Letters Patent of 1960. Under a declaration made in Privy Council in 1960, the surname Mountbatten-Windsor will be applied to male-line descendants of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh who are without royal styles and titles. Individuals with royal styles do not usually use a surname, but some descendants of the Queen with royal styles have used Mountbatten-Windsor when a surname was required.

On this date in History: Queen Elizabeth II decrees non-royal descendants the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.

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Edward VII, House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, House of Windsor, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Mountbatten, Mountbatten-Windsor, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, the prince of Wales, Winston Churchill

On this date in History, February 8, 1960. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issues an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name Mountbatten-Windsor.

In 1947, Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth II), heiress presumptive to King George VI, married Philip Mountbatten. He was born a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a branch of the House of Oldenburg, and had been a prince of Greece and Denmark. However, Philip, a few months before his marriage, renounced his princely titles and adopted the surname Mountbatten, which was the surname of his maternal uncle and mentor, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and had itself been adopted by Lord Mountbatten’s father (Philip’s maternal grandfather), Prince Louis of Battenberg, in 1917. It is the literal translation of the German battenberg, which refers to Battenberg, a small town in Hesse. The Battenberg family were morganatic scions of the Grand Ducal House of Hesse and By Rhine (formally Hesse-Darmstadt).

Soon after Elizabeth became Queen in 1952, Lord Mountbatten observed that because it was the standard practice for the wife in a marriage to adopt her husband’s surname, the royal house had become the House of Mountbatten. This statement is rather surprising given Lord Mountbatten’s knowledge of his family’s royal genealogy and history in general. Plainly, Lord Mountbatten was wrong. Although it is true that technically the Queen was a Mountbatten by marriage, it was not true that the name of the Royal House had changed.

Traditionally a female sovereign reigned under the Royal House to which she was born, and the name of the Royal House would not change until the next generation. An example would be Queen Victoria (1837-1901) who was the last monarch of the House of Hanover (the Royal House representing her Patrilineal descent) while her son, King Edward VII (1901-1910) who was a member of the German House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the same Royal House his father, Prince Albert, The Consort, belonged. It was the name of the Royal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha that was changed to Windsor by King George V (1910-1936) in 1917.

When Elizabeth’s grandmother, Queen Mary, (wife of George V) heard of Lord Mountbatten’s comment, she informed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and he later advised the Queen to issue a royal proclamation declaring that the royal house was to remain known as the House of Windsor. This she did on April 9, 1952, officially declaring it her “Will and Pleasure that I and My children shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that My descendants, other than female descendants who marry and their descendants, shall bear the name of Windsor.” The Duke of Edinburgh Is said to have privately complained, “I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.”

On February 8, 1960, seven years after the death of Queen Mary and the resignation of Churchill, the Queen confirmed that she and her children would continue to be known as the House and Family of Windsor, as would any agnaticdescendants who enjoy the style of Royal Highness and the title of Prince or Princess. However, the Queen took a step further from the April 1952 decree and also decreed that her agnatic descendants who do not have that style and title would bear the surname Mountbatten-Windsor.

This Amendment to the earlier decree came after some months of correspondence between the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the constitutional expert Edward Iwi. Iwi had raised the prospect that the Royal child due to be born in February 1960 would bear “the Badge of Bastardy” if it were given its mother’s maiden name (Windsor) rather than its father’s name (Mountbatten). Macmillan had attempted to rebuff Iwi, until the Queen advised the acting Prime Minister Rab Butler in January 1960 that for some time she had had her heart set on a change that would recognise the name Mountbatten. She clearly wished to make this change before the birth of her child. The issue did not affect Prince of Wales or Princess Anne, as they had been born with the name Mountbatten, before the Queen’s accession to the throne. Prince Andrew, the current Duke of York, was born 11 days later, on February 19, 1960.

Any future monarch can change the dynastic name through a similar royal proclamation, as royal proclamations do not have statutory authority. However, despite the tradition that the name of the Royal House does change to reflect the Patrilineal descent of the new monarch, it seems unlikely the Prince of Wales will change the name of the Royal House and the House of Windsor will remain.

The House of Windsor

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House of Orange-Nassau, House of Windsor, King Edward VII, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Marquess of Cambridge, Mountbatten-Windsor, Prince Louis of Battenberg, Queen Mary I, Queen Victoria

July 17, 1917.

HM King George V

Anti German feelings were running high in the United Kingdom during World War I. Ever since the death of Queen Victoria, who was a member of the House of Hanover, the name of Britain’s royal house was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, named after the German duchy where Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, had originated. Under this pressure King George V decided to change the name of the royal house and to relinquish all German titles for himself and extended family members living in the United Kingdom. As members of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha they were also titled Duke or Duchess of Saxony.

By Royal Proclamation on this date HM King George V changed the name of the royal house to Windsor.

Now, therefore, We, out of Our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that as from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that all the descendants in the male line of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of these Realms, other than female descendants who may marry or may have married, shall bear the said Name of Windsor.

Windsor Castle had long been associated with the Monarchy and naming a dynasty after a Castle did have precidence in Europe. Both the Habsburg and Hohenzollern royal families were named after castles.

Descendants in the female line from Queen Victoria (or in the case of the Teck family were descendants of George III in the female line) also had to relinquish their German styles and titles. The Battenberg family anglicized their name to Mountbatten while the Teck family, which Queen Mary belonged, became the Cambridge family stemming from their maternal descent from HRH Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, 7th son of King George III.

HSH Prince Louis of Battenberg (married to Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine) and his children relinquished their German titles and on November 7, 1917 King George V created Louis, Marquess of Milford Haven, Earl of Medina, and Viscount Alderney in the peerage of the United Kingdom. At this time his younger three children, Louise, George and Louis also dropped their princely titles and adopted the surname Mountbatten. The youngest son, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was Britain’s last Viceroy of India. The eldest daughter, Alice, had married prince Andrea of Greece and never bore the surname Mounbatten. However, her son, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, did choose Mountbatten has his surname when he became a British subject in 1947.

The Duke of Teck, Prince Adolphus, brother of Queen Mary, became Adolphus Cambridge and was made a Peer of the Realm by King George V as Marquess of Cambridge, Earl of Eltham, and Viscount Northallerton. Queen Mary’s younger brother, Prince Alexander of Teck, was married to Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, Princess Alice of Albany, created him as Earl of Athlone and Viscount Trematon. Princess Alice was allowed to keep her royal title as she was a male line descendant of Queen Victoria.

The name of the dynasty will remain the same during the reign of a Queen Regnant. For example, Queen Mary I 1553-1558, remained a Tudor despite being married to a Habsburg. Queen Anne remained a Stuart despite being married to a Danish prince of the House of Oldenburg. The same with Queen Victoria, the name of the Royal House did not change from Hanover to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha until the accession of her son. King Edward VII, in 1901. However, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s uncle, wanted the Queen Elizabeth II to issue a proclamation in 1952 changing the name of the royal house to that of Mountbatten. Queen Mary was a wee bit upset about this maneuver and spoke to Prime Minister Winston Churchill about the issue. Later that year the queen did issue her own proclamation affirming the name of her family and royal house as that of Windsor. This was slightly amended in 1960 where the queen proclaimed that male descendants of her and Philip who are not titled Prince or Princess of the United Kingdom will carry the surname Mountbatten-Windsor. This did not change the name of the Royal House.

What about the future? This is from the website of the British monarchy.

A proclamation on the Royal Family name by the reigning monarch is not statutory; unlike an Act of Parliament, it does not pass into the law of the land. Such a proclamation is not binding on succeeding reigning sovereigns, nor does it set a precedent which must be followed by reigning sovereigns who come after.

The tradition would have it that when Charles becomes king the name of the Royal House would change. Philip was a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a branch of the House of Oldenburg. Charles could keep the name Windsor or the name of his Father’s royal house or the name Mounbatten or Mountbatten-Windsor. Being the traditionalist that I am I was all in favor of changing the name to reflect the new royal house on Charles’s accession. However, I have changed my mind. Given that the British monarchy will change to cognatic primogeniture where the eldest child succeeds to the throne regardless of gender it makes more sense to retain the name Windsor. In the future we could have the same situation as the Dutch where three Queen Regnants have reigned. It would just be silly and cumbersome to change the royal house each and every time. The Dutch remain the House of Orange-Nassau. Besides, Windsor is a very British sounding name and so associated with the monarchy that I now think it should remain…forever.