Almost immediately after the birth of the future prince on May 6, 2019, Queen Camilla was able to view her stepgrandson, Archie, for the first time on the smartphone of any photographer. The unusual departure from royal newborn baby tradition by his parents, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, in favor of not posing for the media outside of the hospital was the cause of the "unfortunate" revelation that occurred.
"We were led to believe that she was going into labor at 2 o'clock, when the baby had been born many hours earlier. We were led to believe it was going to be a home birth, and it was at a hospital. The whole thing was just stage-managed to suit them,” veteran royal lensman Arthur Edwards shared, according to The New York Post.
"Harry’s baby Archie was almost teething before we found out he was born. When William was born, and Harry was born, and George, Charlotte, Louis, we got great pictures outside the hospital. William and Catherine especially — they made such an effort to show the whole world their baby,” he went on.
According to reports, Camilla, who was on tour in Germany at the time, did not get any direct communication from Harry, Meghan, or their staff. Camilla was the Duchess of Cornwall at the time. This is in spite of the fact that she was formerly the Princess of Wales and later became the future queen, a position that would have allowed her to be informed about a new royal birth in accordance with the procedure, as per OK Magazine.
"I remember showing Camilla in, I think, Munich the first pictures of Archie that were taken by the press. I showed her on my phone, and that was the first time she saw him. It was difficult times,” Arthur confessed.
Analysts today believe that this was a moment of "tension and snubs, except a lid was kept on things then before Harry and Meghan blew it off with a canon." Prince Harry and Meghan were in the midst of enjoying parenting, but they were also in the final stretch of months as senior, working royals for the royal family.
When the couple announced their plan to become part-time royals in January 2020, the late Queen Elizabeth II rejected their decision by saying, "You are either in or out." The pair would then announce their intention to step down from their full-time royal status.
Through the publication of his controversial memoir, “Spare,” in the year 2023, Prince Harry made his long-standing resentment at his stepmother available for the entire world to read.
"I remember wondering … if she would be cruel to me; if she would be like all the evil stepmothers in the stories. Despite Willy and me urging him not to, Pa was going ahead," Prince Harry shared when highlighting how Prince William was purportedly also not a fan of the marriage set for April 9, 2005.
"We pumped his hand, wished him well. No hard feelings. We recognized that he was finally going to be with the woman he loved, the woman he’d always loved,” the husband of Meghan Markle added.
