Prince Charles: Archie birthday post an 'olive branch' says expert

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Meghan and Harry revealed they were expecting their second child on Valentine’s Day back in February, and later confirmed they were going to have a girl in the summer. When the couple told Oprah Winfrey the sex of their baby, it was considered the first gender reveal ever undertaken by a member of the Royal Family – demonstrating their new lives away from Palace protocol. Ahead of Channel 4’s programme, ‘A Very Royal Baby: From Cradle to Crown’, the contrasts between the way the Sussexes want to raise their two children and the Palace’s strict conventions are already becoming clear.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have now laid down permanent roots in California with their two-year-old son Archie — he has not been in the UK ever since the family first took their extended break to Canada in November 2019.

Meghan has not been in Britain since she carried out her final royal engagements in March 2020, while Harry only returned in April for a handful of days to attend Prince Philip’s funeral.

As royal commentator Howard Hodgson told Express.co.uk, it therefore seems increasingly unlikely that the Queen’s unborn great-granddaughter will be able to meet the monarch any time soon.

He said that Harry’s ongoing comments regarding his life as a royal means “an immediate reconciliation” between the Sussexes’ growing family and the Firm is “extremely unlikely”.

The Queen has just one official photograph with Archie, two days after his birth, in 2019.

While Prince Charles attended his grandson’s christening a few months later — the Queen and Prince Philip were absent — there have not been any photographs of him with Archie since.

To mark Archie’s second birthday earlier this month, Charles’ official social media accounts posted a photograph dating back to 2019 of the Prince of Wales gazing at his grandson.

It was seen as a peace offering to Harry after his recent jibes at Charles.

However, royal commentator Angela Levin told Royal Beat that it was a “real shame” Harry’s side of the family did not have more photographs of the tot.

Discussing Charles’ decision to post the christening image, she said: “I think it’s a real shame that this is the picture they have.

“That they haven’t got loads of pictures of him becoming a toddler.

“I thought it was very sad, it made me very sad.

“I think that whatever has happened, your family should be able to see the photograph of a child.

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“Even if you don’t need them to have any influence whatsoever, that one photograph is of him as a tiny baby.”

However, Harry also made it very clear how he intended on raising his children far away from royal traditions during his recent appearance on actor Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert.

He said: “If I’ve experienced some form of pain or suffering because of the pain or suffering that perhaps my father or my parents had suffered, I’m going to make sure I break that cycle so that I don’t pass it on, basically.

“It’s a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on anyway so we as parents should be doing the most we can to try and say, ‘you know what, that happened to me, I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.’”

Meghan Markle reads ‘Duck! Rabbit!’ for Archie's birthday

The Duke of Sussex also claimed his family were “trapped” in the system of monarchy in conversation with Oprah Winfrey back in March.

While it’s thought that these recent allegations against his very private family have worsened Harry’s relations with them, the Duke of Sussex did reveal that he had made sure his relatives still got to see a glimpse of Archie earlier this year

In February, he told his friend and US TV host James Corden: “Both my grandparents do Zoom.

“They’ve seen Archie running around.”

‘A Very Royal Baby: From Cradle to Crown’ airs tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm.

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