Archie is exactly the kind of PR the royals need right now

He’s cute as a button, sports a name that breaks tradition, and is less than a week old, but could Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor as he’s now known, be the secret to the monarch’s lasting success, asks Fiona Wingett.

It is an image that has warmed the hearts of millions of people around the world — Her Majesty, The Queen, beaming in delight at her eighth great-grandchild, the sleeping Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor nestled in the arms of his adoring mother, Meghan Markle.

With the Duke of Edinburgh, Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, and a pleased-as-punch Prince Harry also looking on, it is a charming vignette of a family celebrating this happiest of events, the Queen grinning like any granny.

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The name has taken most by surprise — and it started trending globally on social media as soon as it was announced. (Expect a glut of little Archies staring school in five years’ time.) Departing from traditional royal names — such as Henry, Alexander, Louis, Charles — the couple, as they so often do, has chosen to go their own way. For these least compliant of senior royals, who have made a point of carving out their own identity, choosing charities which align with their social and political consciences — leading some to accuse them of being ‘woke’ — and refusing to do things in the time-honoured fashion of the British Monarchy, the choice of such an unexpected name is yet another signal of their renunciation of rituals, which some would label archaic.

The Queen met her eighth great-grandchild on Wednesday with Prince Philip and Doria Ragland also in attendance. Picture: Chris Allerton/Sussexroyal/Duke and Duchess of Sussex/AFP

It also flags, once again, that Harry will not be subject to the whim and strictures of the ‘men in grey’ at the palace, as his mother, the late Princess Diana called them, who caused her so much anxiety and unhappiness.

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With their independent approach, the couple are sweeping through the cobwebby dust of centuries to make the royals more relevant, more approachable and — it could be argued — aiding its longevity. Their stance has not been universally popular — and the couple has to ensure they tread carefully the line between orchestrating change and causing revolution. But because Harry is, well, Harry, the British public, in particular, will give him the leeway perhaps not afforded other royals.

For the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, their relatively unimportant position in the succession (let’s face it, there would have to be a lot of deaths before Master Archie accedes to the throne) allows them the freedom that is simply not available to Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who will one day be head of “The Firm” and become king and queen.

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The Sussex’s handling of the royal birth announcement — made via the @sussexroyal Instagram account while Buckingham Palace scrambled to announce the Duchess was in labour hours after the baby had been born, and which was followed shortly afterwards by Harry’s hastily arranged announcement of the birth — was also a far cry from the time-honoured custom of posting the news on an ornate golden easel in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace.

It seems likely that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will continue to break the rules with their son, Archie. Picture: Dominic Lipinski/WPA/Getty

Harry was his most enchanting, impish self, his happiness and his wonderment at his wife on display for the world to see. The couple had flatly refused the usual media call on the steps of the hospital like the then Prince and Princess of Wales and the Cambridges had, opting to introduce Master Archie to the world on their own terms, when he was two days old.

The couple has also eschewed a royal title for their son: he will be known as Master Archie, although it should be noted his aunt, Princess Anne, did the same for her children, Zara, 37, and Peter, 41, not wishing to encumber them with the baggage of a royal rank, even though it was offered by the Queen.

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As to the origins of the names chosen, Archie, usually short for Archibald, means genuine and bold or brave and Harrison, ‘Harry’s son’, there has been no explanation. Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll of Scotland, however, was an ancestor of Princess Diana. Where she breathed fresh air into the family in the eighties and was determined to buck tradition, it seems her son and his wife also intend to do just the same.

Fiona Wingett is an assistant editor at The Daily Telegraph.