Meghan Markle's Plan for Prince Archie's Birthday Wins Praise

Meghan Markle's planning around Prince Archie's birthday has become the subject of a new viral video, as footage of the duchess organizing her son's first birthday celebrations in 2020 has resurfaced on social media site TikTok.

Archie is the eldest child of Meghan and Prince Harry. He was born in London on May 6, 2019, and introduced to the world in a public photocall at Windsor Castle two days later. His full name is Archie Harrison, and from his birth until 2022 he was known as Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

Following the accession to the throne of his grandfather, King Charles III, in September 2022, Archie and his sister, Lilibet, acquired prince and princess titles in line with royal convention. As such, he became Prince Archie of Sussex.

Following his parent's dramatic split from the monarchy in 2020, Archie moved with them to the U.S., settling in the Montecito area of California after a brief stay in Beverly Hills at the home of movie producer Tyler Perry.

Away from the monarchy, as private individuals, Harry and Meghan have kept their children out of the public eye, meaning fans have been given only rare glimpses into the Sussex family's home life. The most expansive of these came in 2022 where Harry and Meghan included home movies and family photographs in their eponymous Netflix docuseries charting their romance and split from the royals.

Uploaded to TikTok by user family.sussex on January 19, footage from the series showing Meghan preparing for Archie's birthday celebrations has gone viral, gaining over 180,000 views so far.

The clips show Meghan piecing together a balloon arch with Harry, as well as baking a cake before celebrating with their son, who is shown in a photograph playing with confetti.

Captioned "Harry and Meghan planning Archie's first birthday 🎉🎂," the video has received in excess of 4,000 likes and over 120 comments on the social media site so far, many of which have praised Meghan and the Sussex family.

"Happy family. Good thing you left UK drama. What a peacefully life ❤️," wrote one user.

"What a beautiful soul, love Meghan🥰," posted another, with a further user adding: "This is so sweet. What a great memory for Archie and his parents."

Since the Sussex family's move to the U.S. in 2020, Archie has only returned to the U.K. once publicly, for the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee in the summer of 2022.

Though the prince was not photographed during the visit with his parents and sister, Harry provided an insight into his children's meeting with their great-grandmother, the queen, in his January 2023 memoir, Spare.

Reflecting after the monarch's death, he wrote: "For days and days we couldn't stop hugging the children, couldn't let them out of our sight—though I also couldn't stop picturing them with Granny. The final visit. Archie making deep, chivalrous bows, his baby sister Lilibet cuddling the monarch's shins. Sweetest children, Granny said, sounding bemused. She'd expected them to be a bit more...American, I think? Meaning, in her mind, more rambunctious."

The children did not attend the monarch's funeral in September 2022.

Archie will turn five years old on May 6, 2024.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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