‘Disappointed’ King Charles delivers three-word snub on Archie’s fourth birthday

The newly crowned King has publicly ignored his youngest grandson’s birthday for the very first time.

COMMENT

It might be hard to feel sorry for a tiny prince set to grow up in the lap of luxury, with all the organic chia puddings, tiny polo mallets and hand-stitched Christian Dior shirts that a young boy might want, but here goes.

Prince Archie of Sussex, sixth in line to the throne, son of Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the only preschooler in the US with a coronet on his Octonauts lunch box, just had a bit of a dud birthday.

There is the fact that, according to the Daily Mail, he blew his four birthday candles out on a lemon cake made for him by his mother, a flavour which in my experience of four-year-olds would be about as popular as reading them the Treasury’s latest reports on crop yields before bed.

But more significantly than depriving a small child of all the grade-A cane sugar and chocolate frosting they can consume is the fact that his entire British family pretty much just blanked him.

In the last two days, the royal family social media accounts have been pumping out content like some sort of digital sweatshop. I’m imagining that at Buckingham and Kensington palaces the whiz kids working for King Charles, Queen Camilla and William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales have not slept in days, still at their desks, surrounded by a sea of empty Red Bull cans and crumpled packets of Duchy of Cornwall oatcakes. This lot have posted, tweeted, instagrammed and created peppy videos with such efficiency and in such a volume they are all probably in need of IV drips and now in line for OAMs.

However, there is one very big thing they have not done, something that I highly doubt was an oversight given that every second of the coronation was planned with more detail than a land invasion.

Prince Archie was publicly ignored by King Charles on his fourth birthday. Picture: Henk Kruger/AFP

The King’s coronation fell on his youngest grandson’s birthday. Picture: Ben Stansall/WPA Pool/Getty Images

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There has not been a single Instagram or Twitter post about Archie’s birthday.

On Saturday, Charles became the 40th monarch to be anointed inside Westminster Abbey and the first to keep a power bar in his super tunica. (OK, I’m just assuming there.) The same day also happened to be his youngest grandson Archie’s birthday.

For his first, second and third birthdays, the official royal social media accounts have all done the same thing: A cheery post or story wishing the lad a happy birthday using one of the few official shots of the kid taken during the brief months he lived in the UK. (Those social media teams had either a shot of Archie, days old, being doted over by the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Lord High Master of the Barbecue Tongs, or one of Archie’s christening to work with.)

Formulaic, predictable and boring? You betcha – but they did it.

This year? Oh look, another post about a crown.

Look, I know – Saturday was, aside from the passing of Queen Elizabeth last year, the biggest day in royal history in 70 years, not some stray weekend where the palace was on the hunt for something fresh to post.

But I’m not sure that really excuses this. Could they not have found a moment early on the day to bang out a quick picture to their Instagram grid or chuck out a tweet indicating that the King remembers that he has two lots of grandchildren? It would have been the perfect opportunity to really drive home the ‘Caring Charles’ message.

To be fair, things over on Team Crown’s social media channels have been a little unusual of late and not just because Queen Camilla has worked out the password and likes to jump on there around about her third G&T to get into it with @RepublicUK. Earlier this week, the Waleses’ daughter Princess Charlotte turned eight and all she got was a reshare of her official birthday snap via Instagram story and a Twitter post.

🎉 Happy 8th Birthday to Princess Charlotte! https://t.co/KTFywCFoUE

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) May 2, 2023

But still, I don’t think that changes the fact that the King’s or the Waleses’ decision to not formally recognise Archie’s day is, in official parlance, pants.

It was not only not a kind play, it wasn’t a smart one either.

There is, of course, extreme Sussex sensitivity in the mix here. One of the main themes of Harry’s memoir Spare was being made to feel perpetually lesser for no other reason than he had the temerity to be born second. His brother Prince William perpetually getting primo treatment is clearly a sore point equal to that of Greece’s indignation at not getting the Elgin marbles back.

In the lead-up to the coronation, all the reporting indicated that Charles was dead keen on Harry being there for his crowning and, to the Duke of Netflix’s credit, he turned up and did his bit, even in the face of being frozen out by his family and left to sit next to Jack ‘Tequila’ Brooksbank. (Bet the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret would have got on with him like a house on fire.)

Harry did the right thing by his father; surely the decent thing would have been for his father to do the right thing by Harry as well. So to William and Kate: They might have quite the beef with Archie’s parents and vice versa but why wouldn’t they want to take every opportunity to let him know he had not been forgotten by the British side of his family?

That said, Archie was not entirely overlooked by his newly crowned grandfather.

According to the Daily Mail at the depressingly sedate family reception at Buckingham Palace after the coronation, The King — who was “genuinely quite disappointed that Harry didn’t stay for the dinner — “raised a glass to his three grandchildren Prince George – who also served as a Page of Honour – Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis” however “he made a point of also toasting ‘those that weren’t there’ and wished his other grandson a very happy birthday ‘wherever he was’”.

A source told the Mail: “It was apparently a very sweet moment.”

So I reiterate – poor Archie. First a sour cake and now getting a toast at a party he was not invited to and in front of relatives he does not know.

Who needs to get a pony when you can have Princess Michael of Kent half-heartedly proffering her third glass of Waitrose prosecco?

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.