According to reports, Prince Harry felt compelled to keep his son Archie’s birth information a secret.
In her latest book, “The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown,” royal analyst Katie Nicholl says that “one source characterised Harry as being ‘almost morbidly obsessed’ with keeping Archie’s birth as secret as possible.”
The public was ready and expecting to learn all the information about the new royal baby as soon as Meghan Markle gave birth, and this search for concealment supposedly violated a “unwritten contract between the royals and the people.”
Rebecca English, royal editor of the Daily Mail, continued, “Matters were so tense behind the scenes that more than one official — as I know from personal experience — was reduced to tears of frustration and despair.”
The standard procedure after a royal birth is for the father, mother, and new baby to pose on the hospital steps in front of admirers and photographers, answer a few questions, and then leave.
Nicholl claims that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wished to alter everything.
When Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was actually born on May 6, 2019, the pair was able to fool the media.
Harry had a passion for tricking the media, according to Nicholl. Even before the palace press office reported the duchess was in labour, Harry and Meghan were overjoyed to safely deliver their son in London’s upscale Portland hospital.
The pair took part in a little photo op two days later with a single reporter to answer questions.
However, Nicholl continues, “it all felt stage-managed, with pre-approved questions, one journalist, and one camera.” It “showed the widening gap between what the public expected of Harry and what he felt compelled to offer.”
At the time, the “Suits” alum had a worn-out appearance. Similar to Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, the post-natal picture shoots were challenging for her as well. Nicholl noted that the Princess of Wales “acquiesced since she will one day be queen and the mother of a king, therefore there was a real public interest.”
Additionally, Markle, 41, and Harry, 38, kept the identity of Archie’s godparents a secret and conducted a private christening as well.
The Sussexes may have “served an ace in their quest for privacy and tore another page out of the royal notebook,” but according to Nicholl, they also hurt the Crown’s standing with “the press, the broadcasters, and by extension, the public, who felt duped by the experience – whether that was a fair expectation or not.”
