Royal 101: Who is Part of the Royal Family?
The Royal Family is a particular obsession in some corners of British culture. The daily goings-on at the palace, major ceremonies, and even balcony appearances can send people rushing to their closest television to catch a bit of news about a Royal. Of course, the concept of the Royal Family has been around for a long time and the current Royal Family’s dynasty stretches back to Queen Victoria. As you can imagine, a dynasty lasting for so long has produced many Royals but all of them and their descendants are not considered official members of the Royal Family.
While the Royal Family’s membership is rather large, it is not in-exhaustive. In many ways there are tiers of the Royal Family, with the first being the current Sovereign and his/her direct family members by blood or marriage, who constitute senior members of the Royal Family. This, of course, includes his/her spouse and children as well as brothers and sisters. As such, the current Royal Family naturally includes King Charles, Queen Consort Camilla, Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis, Princess Anne, and Prince Edward. Princess Catherine also counts as a core family member due to her marriage to Prince William. All of the members mentioned above, with the exception maybe of George, Charlotte, and Louis, carry out Royal Duties on a regular basis (though the three children will certainly be expected to participate as they get older).
The next tier is lower-profile Royals who were relatives or the descendants of previous monarchs. Currently, that includes the children of Queen Elizabeth II’s sister, Princess Margaret, as well as the children of her father, King George VI’s siblings, Prince George, Duke of Kent, and Prince Harry, Duke of Gloucester. That currently includes Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra, Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Richard’s wife Brigitte, Duchess of Gloucester. Princess Margaret’s children, along with her first husband, Anthony Armstrong-Jones, are the grandchildren of the monarch through the female line, and they are not styled HRH. They still, however, have noble titles of their own and David Armstrong-Jones serving as Earl of Snowden after his father’s death and Lady Sarah Chatto still making appearances at Royal functions.
Lastly, we have members of the Royal Family who are related by blood or marriage but, for one reason or another, are not core members of the Royal Family, nor are they expected to carry out Royal Duties. The first and most infamous of these is currently Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew was stripped of his honors in January 2022 after a long period in which his involvement in a sex trafficking ring run by American businessman Jeffrey Epstein became known to the public. The first allegations against Prince Andrew came out in 2014, and he resigned from Royal Duties in 2020, but as the extent of his involvement became more public and Andrew found himself embroiled in a lawsuit by one of Epstein’s victims, Queen Elizabeth II removed his honorable military affiliations and patronages in 2022.
So, as you can see, there are different levels within the Royal Family, and not everyone born of a monarch or a royal is necessarily a member of the Royal Family or a senior member. Many children of those mentioned above, including Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice, daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, have titles from their father but are not considered a part of the Royal Family.
