When Prince Harry traveled to Ukraine last week, he spent the bulk of his time on Invictus business, meeting veterans and checking out the Superhuman Center, which does cutting-edge surgery and therapy for wounded veterans. He was also given lots of gifts, and Ukrainians seemed so pleased that the ginger prince visited them, years into a deadly and devastating war. One of the gifts Harry received was a big Easter basket full of specially-made Easter cakes and Easter eggs (pysankas) made by the mother of Ukrainian journalist and medic Iryna Tsybukh (who was killed in the war). The Easter cakes were made from Ukrainian flour harvested from demined fields.
Harry brought all of the goodies home to Montecito, and Meghan posted some really sweet IG Stories of Archie and Lili sharing the cakes and creating a meal out of the goodies. Meghan also shared some messages from Ukrainians who were moved that Meghan highlighted their gifts on her IG. One of those messages was from Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s Minister of Economy. Svyrydenko met with Harry during his visit and she was the one to present him with the Easter basket. When Svyrydenko wrote to Meghan, she used Meghan’s “Your Royal Highness” style. As you can imagine, the Windsors are fully crashing out about it.
Meghan Markle has provoked outrage among friends of the royal family after publishing a message addressing herself as “Your Royal Highness.” Markle and Harry never formally surrendered their His/Her Royal Highness (HRH) titles but agreed to stop using them after they quit the royal family and left the United Kingdom.
Until now, this tenuous deal had held despite growing calls in the U.K. for the couple to be stripped of their titles. However, Markle has now called that agreement into question by publishing a letter from Ukraine’s vice president on Instagram using the greeting this weekend.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment, but a friend of King Charles III told The Daily Beast that he would be dismayed at Markle posting a screengrab to Instagram of a message from a senior Ukrainian’s vice prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, that began, “Your Royal Highness, I would like to express my sincere thanks for everything your family is doing for Ukraine.”
“It’s outrageous. Every time you think they can’t make it worse, they make it worse,” the friend of the king said. “The deal with the HRH was a way to stop them cashing in while letting them walk away with pride and dignity and trust, and now Markle is using her HRH on a website which seems to exist to sell jam.”
“They say they want reconciliation,” the source added. “I’m sure the king’s first reaction will be dismay, but he simply doesn’t allow himself to get angry about things like this anymore.”
A friend of Prince William’s said: “It’s actually quite a clever way of testing the water, because there is deniability there, she can say, ‘Well, I just wanted to publish this nice letter to raise awareness for Ukraine, and oops! they got my name wrong—but oh, actually, now I think of it, I never gave the title up anyway, and maybe I will start using it again.’ It’s a step in the wrong direction, basically, away from the agreement. You’d have to be an idiot to believe that she didn’t know exactly what she was doing when she posted that message, unedited, to her stories.”
An expert in heraldry who knows the family told The Daily Beast: “There were plenty of people at the time who said it was a mistake to make not using the title a mere gentleman’s agreement rather than just removing it. This post may not matter in and of itself, but it raises a bigger question: What are they going to do if she simply starts using her HRH again? She probably can’t be stopped as things stand right now. The bottom line is, she is, officially, an HRH. It was never removed.”
I watched the British media all weekend to see how they would cover Prince Harry’s trip to Ukraine and his exclusive, on-the-record comments to People Magazine and the Telegraph about his security fight. What’s fascinating is how little energy was given to Harry’s Ukrainian trip in particular, other than the smooth-brained cries of “why does he feel safer in a warzone than in Britain?!?!” My point is that it’s remarkable that The Daily Beast’s Royalist managed to get sources close to Charles AND William on the record about Meghan posting a letter from Ukraine’s Minister of Economy. They also don’t want to acknowledge that a Ukrainian government official simply used the correct address either – Meghan’s HRH was never taken away, and in official correspondence (like, say, a note or letter from a government official), it’s completely proper to address her as “your royal highness.” Anyway, it’s telling. They’re incandescent with rage over Harry’s Ukrainian trip and they’re taking it out on Meghan for simply highlighting a lovely message.
Harry and Meghan and their kids are trying Easter cakes and decorated eggs from Ukraine
pic.twitter.com/rT3OHDhP7e
— Katerina
(@Le__Katerina) April 12, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Meghan’s IG.
