Why is Buckingham Palace playing stupid games with the royal.uk site?

For years now, Buckingham Palace’s staffers have been playing stupid games with the royal.uk site. The staffers will make a point of refusing to update the site when the Sussexes do something significant, like welcome a child, and the site has consistently underreported Harry and Meghan’s charitable work. It took the palace weeks to update the line of succession when Lilibet Diana was born, and it took them months to update Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s titles when their grandfather became king. Is it incompetence, laziness, racism or pettiness? A toxic blend of all of the above, methinks. Anyway, there were some shenanigans over the weekend on royal.uk, and the Mail and other British outlets were reporting on the changes breathlessly. People Magazine tried to explain what was going on:

Prince Archie’s bio on the British royal family’s website contains a slight error. The official royal family website recently refreshed 3-year-old Archie’s profile page to reflect his royal title. His parents, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, used the appellation for the first time earlier this month in a statement to PEOPLE confirming the christening of their daughter Princess Lilibet, Archie’s younger sister.

While Archie is now styled as “Prince Archie of Sussex” on the official site, the page still states that he is seventh in line to the throne, which was his position at birth in May 2019. Following the death of his great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth in September and the accession of his grandfather King Charles, Archie is now sixth in the line of succession. He’s behind his uncle Prince William, cousins Prince George, 9, Princess Charlotte, 7, and Prince Louis, 4, and his dad Harry.

The little royal’s bio page on the website, which has yet to be updated in full following the death of the Queen, currently reads, “Prince Archie of Sussex was born at 05:26 on Monday 6th May. He is the first child of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and is seventh in line to the throne.” The language links to the full line of succession, which lists Archie in the proper spot.

Earlier this month, the website was updated to reflect Archie and Lilibet’s titles on the line of succession page. They were previously styled as “Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor” and “Miss Lilibet Mountbatten-Windsor” but now appear as “Prince Archie of Sussex” and “Princess Lilibet of Sussex.”

As Buckingham Palace continues to update the extensive website amid the new royal reign (a message on the homepage reads, “Some information on this website may be out-of-date following the death of Queen Elizabeth”), one bio is missing. A profile page for Princess Lilibet, 1, cannot be found on the site. Lili was born in California in June 2021, after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back from their royal roles and moved away from the U.K.

[From People]

Again, is this incompetence, laziness, racism or pettiness? There are clearly staffers in charge of operating and updating the site, and those staffers clearly believe that they have the authority to play these stupid games with the Sussexes. This is so typical of the way the Windsors and their courtiers operate too – they’ll do something incredibly sleazy/petty/racist, they’ll leak their actions to the press and then the press will write “Harry and Meghan are terribly upset that the palace is snubbing them once again!” The story isn’t H&M – it’s that people in charge of royal.uk are terrible at their f–king jobs.

Photos courtesy of Netflix, Misan Harriman/The Sussexes.

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50 Responses to “Why is Buckingham Palace playing stupid games with the royal.uk site?”

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  1. Becks1 says:

    I think the mistake on Archie’s page is just sheer incompetence and laziness. They updated the main page for the line of succession and no one thought to update that part on his page.

    I think the exclusion of Princess Lilibet is a mixture of laziness, incompetence, and racism and bitterness.

    • I think it is racism first and foremost and then incompetence for the rest. You get what you pay for and these people are pain little for the privilege of working for the royal soap opera.

      • Moxylady says:

        It’s racism. Bottom line. To suggest otherwise is dangerous and frankly, insulting.
        Do they hide their racism behind other things? Yes. That’s what most racist institutions do. This isn’t rocket science.
        It’s 2023 – don’t act as though their weaponizing incompetence to cover up for their racism isn’t completely visible for the whole world to see. Don’t give them an inch.

    • ML says:

      Archie’s page originated while he lived in the UK. Lilibet, born in the US, doesn’t have one… Unfortunately, it seems to me that the people behind this website are racist, petty and lazy, but were unable to be as open about it when the Sussexes still lived there. These are the same people who removed Meghan’s name from Archie’s birth certificate. The fact that Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s information is constantly “mistakenly” not updated is an active choice.

      • BeanieBean says:

        Definitely an active choice. For someone whose job is website maintenance, these are relatively easy changes to make. Not making these updates is deliberate, particularly in light of the other updates they have made.

      • molly says:

        @BeanieBean- The RF can get away with a lot of shenanigans because most of us don’t work in PR for a centuries-old, global institution/family that’s so intertwined with a country’s culture that it IS the culture.

        But plenty of us work in jobs where a text edit can be made on the website with relative ease. Especially if something is factually inaccurate and constantly in the news! (People would be drug out of bed in the middle of the night to fix it at my work, OMG!)

    • Snuffles says:

      They seem especially petty about Lili’s birth. Between the pregnancy announcement, the birth being completely out of sight and no details released, to her taking the name of Lilibet to them not getting a full face picture until a year later. Normally the birth of a royal baby would be a cash cow for the tabloids but they were denied that at every turn.

      And I bet you there are courtiers who refuse to acknowledge her line of succession because they couldn’t personally confirm she came out of Meghan’s womb (there is some archaic rule that they must be born of a royal wife’s womb to be legitimate).

      • Becks1 says:

        They are so petty and bitter about everything but especially Lili’s birth (and Archie’s too but they were able to monetize that in SOME ways which is what they care about.)

        One of the things that is sort of ironic is that Charles has talked for years about slimming down the monarchy, and when Harry basically did just that (removing himself and his wife as working royals and removing his children from the royal fishbowl) its been meet with howls of anger and disappointment and hatred. I’m saying that bc I’m sitting here thinking “well what would Lili’s page even say on the royal website, she’s not even 2” but I bet Louis has his own page (don’t make me go look at that site, please, lol.) As we’ve discussed on here before Harry’s actions should make it easier for Charlotte and Louis to forge their own paths in life and instead I think the Firm will cling that much more tightly to them, especially bc W&K are not going to want their children to have to “work” for a living.

      • BQM says:

        @becks I went and looked. Louis has one but it’s only full of the official stuff like his birth announcement at BP, the Lindo Wing appearance, his christening, etc. Basically stuff that happened in the uk while his parents were working royals. Archie’s was similar. Lili doesn’t have any of it to put on there.

        As for needing updating? Harry and Meghan’s bios both still note they plan to continue to work ‘for the queen’ despite stepping back. Yep, a bit outdated.

      • equality says:

        Louis’ page mostly talks about his christening and godparents. It hasn’t been updated either. He is still listed as 5th in line.

      • Couch potato says:

        They are doing this deliberately, but they’re also so lazy they haven’t updated Louis’ bio. Let’s not forget Chuck’s been in charge of the staff of two households for a while. Both households had at least one person in charge of SM and their web sites. Meaning two people could’ve divided the pages between them and finished the job a LONG time ago if they’d worked like normal people. I had to build a web site from scratch in my previous life. It wasn’t at this scale, but it was a lot of info from various sources, and it took me much shorter time between my other work taskes to finish that, than they’ve used to update a royal web site.

      • Bee says:

        BQM, are you for real? Lili was born and has been christened. She has godparents. She is 7th in the line of succession! That’s not nothing. Come on.

      • Jais says:

        Lol, so basically they need to update Lili’s page to say she was christened in Montecito and her grandmother Doria was there, her Spencer aunts, and her godfather Tyler Perry. Omg, I want to see that update. They prob just can’t bring themselves to write it😂
        💯 @becks1. Harry literally helped his dad with his whole slimmed down monarchy scheme. He should be grateful 😇

    • Mrs.Krabapple says:

      This is PROOF that Kate is pregnant again!!! Archie is still #7 in line because Kate’s new baby will be #5!!!

      Kidding, obviously. There’s no way Kate is pregnant again, unless they managed long-distance IVF.

    • Eurydice says:

      I believe all this – laziness, incompetence, racism – but I also think it’s the priorities set by the RF. For the past couple of years there have been various large events to be managed – Phillip’s funeral (small attendance, but lots of logistics), the Jubbly, the Queen’s funeral and now the Chubbly. With all the RF demands, I can imagine web site is the last thing they’re thinking about.

  2. Giddy says:

    It’s just not that hard to get it right, or to correct it when the error is pointed out. Since that correction has not been made, it is legitimate to ask why not.

    • smlstrs says:

      I absolutely think racism is the main factor here. I do wonder, reading the amazingly thin bio of Archie, if Lili’s parents have smartly withheld even enough info to write the same sentences for her.

      Archie’s bio is basically 2 sentences with the info name, date and time of birth, parents and position in the line of succession.

      In the same format, the same info would be needed to write Lili’s bio. They have to say her name and birthday and the parents and succession standing are automatic.

      But I can imagine that it would feel good to sit on any detail – time of birth – that they CAN keep private. And whoever writes the website copy can’t write that 2 sentence bio without it being obviously left out.

      I don’t know, it’s what I’d try to do in their place. And the palace doesn’t seem to employ people who’d think independently be able to competently write around the omission. (Yes, I realize that’s a low bar but … I briefly worked in website copy and was amazed at the low bars not being cleared).

      Anyway that’s my contribution to the scenario of a little much deserved Sussex rebelliousness and retaking of control. :: wistfully removes tinfoil tiara in preparation to go do chores and paperwork ::

  3. notasugarhere says:

    I’d say deliberate choices covered up as incompetence.

    They left Meghan out of the Court Circular for most of her time too. The only way to know how many engagements she had done was to follow them yourself or follow Tim O’Donovan (the unofficial record keeper). You couldn’t look them up in the CC.

    It has been YEARS since the map function of the CC has worked. It was too easy to see the royals only do engagements in the Home Counties area where they’re liked, and rarely do engagements outside that region.

  4. ThatsNotOkay says:

    May I be this incompetent, lazy, and hostile at my place of work, please? There mustn’t be double standards, now. If they can do it, so must I be able to as well.

  5. Amy Bee says:

    The Royal Family’s website has always been a shambles but that doesn’t excuse their refusal to give Lili and Archie their proper titles when the Queen died. It’s clear that the Royal Family don’t want to recognise or accept Harry’s children in any way because they also took their time to add them to line of succession when they were born.

  6. C-Shell says:

    This stuff is not hard, and we’re talking about “bios” for babies — their accomplishments at this stage are, basically, being born to their beleaguered parents. Incompetence plays a significant part because palace staff are not trained or educated to do the most elementary tasks. But, just like they fucked around with HRH Prince Archie’s birth certificate, this is their passive aggressive way to flex and put the Sussexes (read: Meghan) in their place. What kind of soulless monsters abuse babies?! Rhetorical.

    • Amy Bee says:

      Most definitely.

    • Jojo says:

      Yeah. I get passive aggressive vibes too. Tbh that’s the standard MO for these people. Plausible deniability is always the aim of the game, backed up with aggressive personal denigration if ever caught out. Just ask Ngozi Fulani

  7. Mary Pester says:

    The Palace staff are the mirror of their employers, racist, lazy, vindictive and jealous. They have tried so hard, for so long to bring Harry and Megan down and have failed at every turn, so they continue to play spiteful little games (little minds match). Now they are going for their children, HELL NO, Harry and meghan won’t stand for it, not for a minute. Remember how in spare Harry used code to cover the names of people who were malign influences in all the Palace dealings, Harry will tell them, stop fking with my children or YOUR NAMES will be out there (personally, I think Harry has given them enough rope, now it’s time to let them hang themselves). On a final note, when is this racist family and it’s staff going to realise that them still trying to come for them isn’t going to work. Megan has proved she is not and never has been the gold digger they label her, because NO ONE would take this amount of sht if she wasn’t deeply in love with her husband

  8. Saschafrom76 says:

    Racism. Period. Sick of giving these people any sort of benefit of the doubt they have shown who they are stop making excuses for what they’re doing or pondering the reasons. They’re racist- full stop. Call them out. Until people do the hard work of disconnecting with the racists in their life this BS is going to continue. I haven’t seen my family and for years because of the politics, and it’s finally sinking into them they will never see me again. The good ones are diving deep into the racism they may not have realized they were perpetuating before and the rest are showing them selves for who they are. That’s where we are with these people.

    • Moxylady says:

      100% correct.
      I’m sorry about your family.
      I had to leave mine behind with their hatred and bigotry as well.

  9. Vanessa says:

    I think this was done on purpose the Press we’re Angry that Harry show up in person to his court so the palace need to keep press happy . So they throw the racist red meat to the press this was done so the royal reporters can have something to report on instead of reporting on the media involvement in harassing stalking people . I don’t think Harry and Meghan care about titles as much as Kate does she the one who is titles obsessed so once again the press is projecting and trying to make Meghan seem like she so so obsession with titles .

  10. Em says:

    Totally deliberate and a bat signal to the moon bump conspiracy theorists. I genuinely believe the palace were the first to put out the surrogacy/ moon bump conspiracy out to their online bots.

    They know the kids are real but they don’t want them to ever be officially acknowledged.

    Remember the meghanomania article of 2019 where the palace staff briefed about calling her me gain? There was a line like “ everyone knows theirs is an IVF baby”, also Kristen meinzer said in the lead up to the royal wedding she was being asked the implications if Meghan can’t conceive, Sarah vine also referenced moon bump in one of her stupid articles

    If the tatler article were to believed and they claimed meg made Kate cry when it was the opposite then it implies Kate actually used IVF for her kids .

  11. Jais says:

    You know what? I’m over it. Let’s just say it’s racism rather than incompetence. They’re getting their digs in and than feigning incompetence. It’s believable bc they are also incompetent. But it’s racism.

    • QuiteContrary says:

      This, 100%.

      It would take minutes to fix this. But the fact that Lilibet has a Black grandmother, a biracial mother — and a Black godfather — must be driving these racists wild.

  12. BayTampaBay says:

    Just a question which I cannot find an answer to:

    1. If Lady Louise used her HRH style would she be HRH Louise Princess of Wessex or would she be HRH Princess Louise of Edinburgh.

    2. If James used his HRH style would he be HRH Prince James of Wessex, Earl of Wessex or would he be HRH Prince James of Edinburgh, Earl of Wessex.

    I have searched and cannot find an answer from a credible source.

    • BQM says:

      Based on tradition, I’d go with ‘of Edinburgh’ just like the Cambridge kids changed to ‘of wales’. Louise would be Princess Louise of Edinburgh. however, James is currently going by his father’s old title which is unusual for a royal child. He’d likely be prince James, Earl of Wessex. No Edinburgh designation. Just like neither William or Harry went by ‘of wales’ once they were given their ducal titles.

      • molly says:

        James is an oddity, yes. (Giving Edward that lower Earl title really made things complicated.)

        George technically could have used “Earl of Strathearn”, and Archie “Earl of Dumbarton”, when they were born.

        I think James being nearly 18 when this shuffling is happening is why they did it. He’ll be branded Earl of Wessex for whatever he does as an adult.

        Either Will or Charles want back All Things Edinburgh, so it makes sense that James doesn’t get to keep the name in any way.

      • BayTampaBay says:

        What I could not figure out was if the Wessexes kids could use a title granted to Edward & Sophie only for their life times.

        Thanks for the opinions.

    • Jennifer Smith says:

      Re: question in the headline—sorry, I don’t answer rhetorical questions.

    • Lauren says:

      So the experts I checked with said because Earl of Wessex is just a courtesy title James would be His Royal Highness Prince James of Edinburgh during his fathers lifetime and His Royal Highness the Earl of Wessex after his fathers death. Louise’s title would change when/if she marries not at her father’s death.

  13. Rackel says:

    I think it’s laziness but we also have to remember it’s Britain. Those British institutions move at glacial speed. When they do move its usually precise and well thought out but they don’t move fast unless they are scamming.

    Then we have the tit for tat. Lillibeth was born in the usa. I’m not surprised she doesn’t have a webpage. Then she was christened in the usa! She won’t get a page until she goes to grandpa church. Or grandpa needs a talking point/good press. The British drag out everything. Look at brexit.

  14. JCALLAS says:

    It wouldn’t surprise me if the royal website was run by a derranger.

  15. Jennifer says:

    I don’t know why anyone’s shocked at this. They aren’t considered royal or family at this point and any way to do a passive-aggressive dig is gonna happen.

  16. Beverley says:

    The RF and their employees are so bad at this. Dogshit Charlie made it very clear that Meghan isn’t considered as family and he shows zero interest in her children. It’s pretty obvious that her mixed-race children are not welcome and the majority of the British public seems to agree. They’re giving strong vibes of wanting the royals of color DEAD.

    Yet this culture – based on hundreds of years of classism, racism, and colonialism – continues to insist that racism just doesn’t exist on Salt Island.

    It’s a complete joke looking at it from the perspective of a foreigner. “Very much not racist”, my Black ass!

    • Tessa says:

      Beverley I would not say the majority of the British people feel this way. There are no reliable or definitive surveys to prove this.

      • Emily_C says:

        Racism is a huge problem in Britain, though. A huge problem that a huge number of Brits just will not accept exists.

  17. Over it says:

    An entire institution and family of dog sh-its racist incompetent lazy idiots .

  18. Feebee says:

    It’s indifference. Now you could argue what’s driven that indifference ie racism, incompetence etc but they really just don’t seem to be able to care enough about getting things right when it comes to the Sussexes.

    What’s that saying… that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference?

  19. Whyforthelove says:

    They have lost all power in the situation. The only way they have left to enact their racial superiority fantasies is to make editing “errors”. Pitiful

  20. jferber says:

    Deliberate, yes. No doubt about it.

  21. jferber says:

    And by the way, Lili’s baby picture above is absolutely beautiful. Two darling children, Lili and Archie, who are happily ensconced in the loving home of their wonderful parents in sunny (and sometimes not so sunny) California.

  22. Noor says:

    If age is not a barrier, here’s hoping that the Sussexes would consider having one more child

    • PrincessK says:

      I am sure that they would love more.
      They have stated they will have just two for environmental reasons but l think a bigger reason is logistics and security costs. The children will need top security all their lives.

  23. phlyfiremama says:

    Not exactly paragons of efficiency and expertise at their jobs, are they?! Such shoddy work from the”professionals” being paid to do the job. And then there are the staffers . 🤣🤣🤣