On Wednesday, the world got its first opportunity to perv on the newest member of Britain’s royal family as Prince Harry and Meghan — the Duke and Duchess of Sussex — brought baby Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor along to meet South Africa’s Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
The Duke of Sussex, who are in the middle of a 10-day royal tour that will see them visit South Africa, Botswana, Angola and Malawi, released photographs on their Instagram platform of the four-month-old Archie’s introduction to the first black Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and Johannesburg.
On one image captioned “Arch meets Archie”, the octogenarian Archbishop Tutu is seen kissing baby Archie’s forehead during one moment of his 30-minute engagement with the royalists at historic Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town.
Also with Tutu during the visit was his daughter, Tutu-Gxashe, who is the chief executive of the Tutu Desk campaign, which provides portable desks for school children.
Archie is Queen Elizabeth’s eighth great-grandchild and the seventh in line to the British throne.
While the royal family have released photos of their son to mark his birth and christening, they have kept him largely away from the glances of press. Thus, the visit to South Africa was the first real chance for the world to see him squirming around in the flesh.
Tutu said he felt “thrilled” by the “rare privilege and honour” of meeting the royals.
During the meeting, Prince Harry reportedly joked that Archie is not camera-shy, saying:
“I think he is used to it already,” with Meghan adding that “He’s an old soul”.
Tutu-Gxashe predicted that he would be a “ladies man.”
On another post, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex wrote;
“The Archbishop, a globally respected figure in anti-apartheid movement, is one of the world’s great champions of equality, and has spent his life tirelessly battling injustice.
Their Royal Highnesses have joined The Archbishop and Thandeka to learn more about the work of The Tutu and Leah Legacy Foundation, and see first-hand how they are focussing on global awareness of the critical issues affecting the world.”
‘Thank you Archbishop Tutu for your incredibly warm hospitality, Archie loved meeting you!’, they wrote on another.
Africa is a continent close to the Prince’s heart and his charity work on public health and nature conservation, as it was to his mother the late Princess Diana. He told the press that returning to Africa felt “like coming home.”
Archbishop Tutu thanked the royals for their ‘concern and interest in the welfare of our people’, saying,
‘It’s very heartwarming… very heartwarming to realise that you really, genuinely are caring people.’
Prince Harry replied:
‘We all try to make things better.’
The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation is a “centre of knowledge and discourse, a repository for intellectual property and a platform to reconnect people to each other and to their own integrity”, it states on its website. The foundation was established by the Archbishop in 2013.
Tutu, who campaigned tirelessly for Mandela’s release, set up the legacy foundation with his wife, Nomalizo Leah Tutu, to help instil their values in the next generation of leaders.
It’s chair, Niclas Kjellström-Matseke, said:
“We are enormously grateful to welcome the duke and duchess to our magnificent space, and for their love and respect for ‘the Arch’.”
At Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, Archie, Meghan and Harry received a special basket of presents.
According to the UK’s PA Media news agency, he was given an illustrated copy of a book written by Archbishop Tutu, called “Desmond and the very mean word.”
The book centres around a memory from Tutu’s South African childhood, PA Media reported. In the story, a young Desmond is full of pride at the prospect of taking his new bicycle for a ride around his neighbourhood but is hurt when a group of boys shout a mean word at him. The book reveals how he discovers compassion despite the upset.
Archie was also presented with other gifts including a book of Children’s Bible Stories and a children’s songbook featuring work by Patricia Schonstein, who founded a pre-school in South Africa in 1984, in open defiance of apartheid regulations.
Harry was given a framed photograph of his mother Diana meeting Nelson Mandela in 1997. A second copy was given to him for his brother, William, the Duke of Cambridge, PA Media reported.
Although the couple has previously posted some of Arch. Tutu’s inspirational quotes on their social media platforms, Prince Harry last met the cleric in November 2015 when the Queen named him as an honorary member of The Order of the Companions of Honour, in recognition of his services to UK communities, international peace and reconciliation.
After the meeting with the Arch, Meghan visited mothers2mothers, a charity supporting mothers with HIV, bringing with her a holdall of baby clothing outgrown by Archie and the children of friends. They included two tiny white vests, one bearing the words The Future, and another with the Invictus Games logo.
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