William and Harry’s Feud and Their Children

It seems hard to imagine that the royal feud between William and Harry will not affect the next generation.

Both sets of parents are moral absolutists, convinced they are right and refusing to apologize even performatively in the service of peace. One assumes both sets of children have therefore either already gained or will ultimately glean from their parents, not to mention schoolfriends and staff, a pretty one-sided account of the history of accusations, backstabbing and betrayal that has characterized this family breakdown.

I’m told that no Christmas presents or cards are exchanged between the children. Harry, I was previously told, has sent Christmas and birthday presents to the Wales kids in the past but is not sure if they were all passed on.

It’s an issue I find myself wondering about today as both Prince William’s kid, George, and Harry’s children, Archie and Lilibet, were publicly introduced into their respective family (charity) businesses this week, with both sides no doubt keen to cash in on the season of goodwill to start the process of positioning their kids as the inheritors of their legacies.

Meghan and Harry went first: In a statement on their Archewell website, the couple revealed that the organization was being rebranded as “Archewell Philanthropies.”

Accompanying the rebrand was a striking line: the charitable entity, they said, would allow “the couple and their children to expand upon their global philanthropic endeavors as a family.”

The implication that children of Archie and Lilibet’s ages—six and four—are already participants in “global philanthropy” and are looking forward to getting more involved in it, as opposed to, say, laughing their heads off at yelling the word “poop”, is absurd, grandiose and self-important. It also raises serious questions about who is advising Meghan and Harry, and whether they are being listened to.

Publicly positioning very young children as active participants in a global philanthropic enterprise, without them having any meaningful say in it, is also, of course, something the royals do, a lot, and on Saturday we saw William thrust his son and heir, George, fully into the limelight for the first time, as photographs and video were released of George making Christmas lunch for the homeless at London homeless shelter The Passage, a favorite cause of Princess Diana’s.

Strategically I think that George, 12, helping out at The Passage for about an hour, is much easier for us (and him) to understand than a frankly deluded statement suggesting your four year old is already a global philanthropist. I remember carol singing at Christmas to raise money for the homeless at about that age; it’s a cause that to a child is (perhaps deceptively) easy to understand, especially at this time of year, because the immediate demand—shelter—is both straightforward and of a piece with the nativity story.

It’s notable that Harry and Meghan took their kids to do something similar ahead of Thanksgiving, when the family spent time preparing meals for the Los Angeles community with Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles (OBKLA).

Meghan shared snaps of the experience on her Instagram Stories, including one of her smiling and holding Lilibet’s hand as Harry poured ground beef over rice into containers.

However, because the children’s faces were obscured as part of the worldwide privacy tour, the images didn’t really land with much impact, certainly not the impact that the crystal-clear footage and photos of William and George smiling broadly made this weekend.

It was notable that the most revealing images yet of Archie and Lilibet were posted by Meghan on the very day the charity rebrand was announced.

It is now undeniable, as I have long argued, that the Sussex children’s faces are being revealed incrementally to stoke curiosity. The release of the children’s images clearly functions as a powerful promotional tool, stoking interest and attention at pivotal moments, such as this announcement that Archewell is not a conventional charity and but a heritable, brand-driven enterprise.

Archie and Lilibet are being eased into their roles as components of the Sussex brand before our eyes every bit as much as George is, and fairly soon now, I predict, they will be fully unveiled to us in service of that cause.