letters patent issued in 1917 assign a princely status and the style of royal highness to all male-line grandchildren of a monarch. therefore, all else being equal, james would have been styled as "his royal highness prince james of wessex". however, when his parents married, the queen, via a buckingham palace press release, announced that their children would be styled as the children of an earl, rather than as princes or princesses. thus, as is customary for the eldest son of an earl, court communications refer to him as "viscount severn", which is one of his father's subsidiary titles.