‘Our little bundle of joy is just a dream’
After that wait, proud parents show off gorgeous Archie
CRADLeD in the arms of his doting father, the newest addition to our oldest institution made his public debut at Windsor yesterday beneath the busts and portraits of former monarchs – and was then introduced to the current one.
Archie harrison MountbattenWindsor, as the new seventh in line to the throne will be called, snoozed serenely through it all.
But then, as an elated Duchess of Sussex explained: ‘he’s just been the dream.’
Appearing for the first time since giving birth on Monday morning, the duchess could hardly have been happier: ‘ It’s magic, it’s pretty amazing. I have the two best guys in the world.’
It was all smiles later, too, as the proud parents took their son to meet the Queen and the Duke of edinburgh, accompanied by the duchess’s mother, Doria Ragland.
Baby Archie may be the very model of modern royalty, a British-American descended from William the Conqueror and Robert the Bruce on one side and with African/Irish/hollywood lineage on the other. he will, for now at least, have no royal title, as the Daily Mail revealed earlier this week. Nor will he be christened with the traditional version of his name. It is to be ‘Archie’, not ‘Archibald’, all the way.
As for harrison, it was chosen for no other reason than that the couple liked the name and the inference that it suggests a ‘son of harry’. All very 21st century. yet Archie’s first official engagement in what could be a lifetime of such occasions could hardly have been more traditional.
Instead of inviting cameras into their home at Frogmore Cottage, the duke and duchess had chosen St George’s hall to present their first-born to the world.
The grandest and most spectacular of all Windsor Castle’s state apartments, it is lined with suits of shining armour, a homage to the patron saint of england and the Age of Chivalry.
It is usually packed with tourists, when not hosting state banquets or family gatherings (like harry and Meghan’s own wedding reception this time last year). yesterday it was empty, save for a tiny media contingent, including one American as well as one British television camera in deference to the duchess’s homeland.
The couple appeared through the door from the Grand Reception Room, the duke carrying Archie and still sporting the same euphoric grin we saw hours after the birth. The duchess, in a white sleeveless summer dress, looked blissfully proud and still a little bowled over by it all.
After posing for the cameras for a few moments, she offered us a few promising first insights.
‘he has the sweetest temperament, he’s really calm,’ she noted.
‘I don’t know who he gets that from,’ joked the duke, gently stroking Archie with his thumb. So who does the baby take after most? ‘We’re still trying to figure that out,’ the duchess replied.
The duke had evidently been giving the matter much thought: ‘everyone says that babies change so much over two weeks; we’re basically monitoring how the changing process happens over this next month really. But his looks are changing every single day, so who knows?’
Unlike some terrified first-time fathers, we were looking at a natural. A Palace insider later confirmed that the duke had already changed several nappies. So how did he find being a parent. ‘It’s
great. Parenting is amazing,’ he said, with palpable enthusiasm. ‘It’s only been three days, but we’re just so thrilled to have our own little bundle of joy and be able to spend some precious times with him as he slowly, slowly starts to grow up.’
The one problem with the bundle of joy, at this moment, was all the bundling. With a bonnet pulled down over his tiny head and all the swaddling keeping him snug and warm, there was very little of Archie visible.
Royal aides had made it clear in advance that the couple would not be parading him before the cameras. We all know how carefully these two have guarded every detail of this pregnancy and birth.
However, the world could reasonably expect to see more than a bonnet.
So Alan Jones, the unflappable royal correspondent of the Press Association, delicately asked if the baby might be turned just a little further towards the cameras.
The duke obliged, even dropping in a dig at his own expense: ‘He’s already got a little bit of facial hair as well – wonderful!’ Harry’s beard has been the butt of more than a few family jokes.
The couple were asked about taking Archie to meet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. As it turned out, the new greatgrandfather had already been treated to a sneak preview. ‘We just bumped into the duke as we were walking by which was so nice,’ the duchess explained. ‘So it’ll be a nice moment to introduce the baby to more family – and my Mum’s with us as well.’
‘Another great-grandchild,’ Harry sighed with mock weariness.
Archie may indeed be the Queen’s eighth. However, she was clearly as thrilled as everyone else when the Sussexes appeared at her private apartments. Yesterday was the opening day of the Royal Windsor Horse Show, a firm favourite in the Queen’s calendar. Despite heavy rain, she had been
HARRY and Meghan followed in the footsteps of relatives including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in using a shawl from a family lace firm in Nottinghamshire for their son’s first fashion foray.
When he was introduced yesterday, Archie was swaddled in a white Leaves and Flowers shawl from GH Hurt and Son, costing £105, with a cashmere hat from a set that comes with mittens (£ 4). The firm said the Duke of Cambridge was wrapped in a similar shawl in 1982, as were his children.
down to Home Park to watch the action but was back well in time to meet Archie – now in his mother’s arms – and Doria.
This was the sort of scene which historians will point to long into the future when they come to chronicle key landmarks in the story of the monarchy. Here we see the longest-reigning monarch in history and an African-American yoga teacher united by a handsome new addition to the same family.
Outside, I found the posse of royal-watchers, some of whom had been camped on these streets for days. They were glued to the television in the Esquires coffee shop.
‘Oh, he’s just lovely. He really is,’ said Michelle Lassiter, an accountant from Guildford, Surrey. She had taken several days off work to be in Windsor just to ‘be part of it all with like-minded people’.
Dressed in his union jack suit, Terry Hutt, the 84-year-old doyen of the royal ‘superfans’, admitted he was disappointed not to be able to see the baby’s hair.
All were unhappy not to have set eyes on the baby themselves, as they have done every time the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have brought a newborn out of St Mary’s, Paddington. However, as Caryll Foster, 59, from Surrey, pointed out: ‘St George’s Hall looks a lot more royal than a pavement in Paddington.’
And the one upshot of yesterday’s tightly controlled photo-opportunity is that the world has now seen a good deal more of Archie Mountbatten-Windsor than would have been the case on a hospital doorstep.
Other members of the family are now expected to form an orderly queue outside Frogmore Cottage, starting with the Cambridges and the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.
Today, however, Prince Harry will leave his wife and child for an official visit to Holland. A modern parent he may be, but paternity leave does not trump royal engagements already in the diary.