Robert Lacey – royal author and historian – made the claim whilst writing for the Daily Mail, and even compared one of the Royal Family’s customs to Soviet Russia. He noted that in the Queen’s annual Christmas message after Archie had been born, the former monarch only quickly referenced the newest addition to the Sussex family, and not by name.

“Who does and who does not feature on the royal Christmas desk has always been like the changing panorama of faces on the historic balcony of Moscow’s Kremlin. It showed who was in favour and who was not,” the historian wrote. “In 2018, Harry and Meghan had featured smiling in a silver frame. But there would be no sign of them in 2019, nor any mention of the name Sussex.”

Lacey added, “The Queen simply acknowledged the arrival of her great-grandchild in passing, without mentioning his name or his parents: ‘Prince Philip and I have been delighted to welcome our eighth great-grandchild into our family.’ This was the Queen’s only reference to the new arrival and his parents in her 2019 address to the world — an anonymous ‘eighth great-grandchild’.

“The Sussex family had been ‘non-personed’ as effectively as the Soviets non-personed Trotsky and Khrushchev — another charming custom, of course, that had been developed by the Kremlin.” However, the expert also noted that a video clip of the Queen meeting Archie – alongside his maternal grandmother Doria Ragland – was played during the address.