Today, May 6, is Archie Mountbatten-Windsor ’s first birthday. To mark the occasion, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared a video of the duchess reading the children’s book Duck! Rabbit! to her young son, all filmed by the duke.
She reads animatedly as Archie smiles and helps flip the pages. At one point, she makes quacking sounds to entertain him, and Prince Harry joins in from behind the camera.
The video doubled as a birthday tribute and charitable initiative for Save With Stories, a campaign that helps kids who have been impacted amid COVID-19 by providing food and education material. In fact, instead of posting on their own account, @sussexroyal, it was only shared on the campaign’s page and included a lengthy call to action.
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The Instagram post provides a rare glimpse of Archie, whose last public appearance was during Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s fall tour of southern Africa. They have expressed wishes to keep him out of the limelight—his christening, for example, was private, and his parents opted not to give him a royal title. And then there’s their joint residency in the United Kingdom and North America: “This geographic balance will enable us to raise our son with an appreciation for the royal tradition into which he was born, while also providing our family with the space to focus on the next chapter,” the couple explained in a statement in January.
Right now, the family of three is residing in Los Angeles. Like the rest of the state, they are sheltering in place, and any birthday party for Archie will likely be a quiet and private one.
However, his extended family in the United Kingdom sent their well-wishes on social media. This morning, Kensington Palace shared a picture of the entire Windsor clan from Archie’s christening, with the caption, “Wishing Archie a very happy first birthday today!” The queen and Prince Charles too chimed in with similar well-wishes.
