Royal Highness (abbreviation HRH) is a style (His Royal Highness or Her Royal Highness); plural Royal Highnesses (abbreviation TRH, Their Royal Highnesses). It appears in front of the names of some members of some royal families but is not used for Kings or Queens who are styled Majesty.
The style Royal Highness ranks below Imperial Highness, but above Grand Ducal Highness, Highness, Serene Highness and some other styles.
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By the 17th century, all local rulers in Italy adopted the style Highness, that was once used by kings and emperors only. According to Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie, the style of Royal Highness was created on the insistence of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, Infante of Spain, a younger son of King Philip III of Spain. The Archduke was travelling through Italy on his way to the Low Countries and, upon meeting Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, refused to address him as Highness unless the Duke addressed him as Royal Highness. Thus, the first use of the style Royal Highness was recorded in 1633. Gaston, Duke of Orléans, younger son of King Henry IV of France, encountered the style in Brussels and assumed it himself. His children later used the style, considering it their prerogative as grandchildren of France.[1]
The vast majority of African royals typically make use of titles such as prince, chief and shaykh, eschewing the attendant styles that one would ordinarily be accustumed to seeing or hearing along with them. Even in the cases of the aforesaid titles, they usually only exist as courtesies and carry little, if any, legal weight. However, a number of ranking personages use styles when they have official functions to perform as monarchs or high nobles of extant sovereign or constituent states. They do this inorder to highlight their relatively superior status as compared to all other aristocratic titleholders, those who derive their prestige either from defunct states or from leading clans within tribes. For example, the Nigerian traditional rulers of the Yoruba are usually styled using the HRH The X of Y method, even though they are confusingly known as kings in English and not the reigning princes that the HRH style would seem to suggest. The chiefly appellation Kabiyesi (lit. He (or She) whose words are beyond questioning) is likewise used as the equivalent of the HRH and other such styles by this class of royals when rendering their full titles in the Yoruba language.
In the British monarchy the style of Royal Highness is associated with the rank of prince or princess (although this has not always applied, the notable exception being Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who was given the style of HRH in 1947 but was not created a prince until 1957). This is especially important when a prince has another title such as Duke (or a princess the title of Duchess) by which he or she would usually be addressed. For instance HRH The Duke of Connaught was a prince and a member of the royal family while His Grace The Duke of Devonshire is a non-royal duke and not a member of the British Royal Family.
In the United Kingdom, a letters patent dated 21 August 1996 stated that a style received by the spouse of a member of the Royal Family on their marriage ceased in the case of their divorce. [2] It was for this reason that when HRH The Princess of Wales, and HRH The Prince of Wales divorced, she ceased to be Royal Highness, and was styled Diana, Princess of Wales. Similarly, HRH The Duchess of York was restyled Sarah, Duchess of York after her divorce from Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
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