AMANDA PLATELL: What’s the reason Meghan’s suddenly so keen to flaunt Archie and Lilibet for the world to see? I think I know exactly what’s coming next… and why

Prince Harry could hardly have been clearer: he’s frightened for the safety of his children and protective of their privacy.

And, as we’ve been told, the prince has his reasons, what with his own childhood trauma and that simmering hatred of the media.

So, the rules seemed pretty strict: no facial pictures of Archie and Lilibet allowed. We saw the little prince and princess, aged six and four, in silhouette only, or from behind.

But what’s this? As Father’s Day dawned, so did a jaw-dropping change of heart.

Come Sunday, we were treated to Instagram footage of Harry dancing around the Montecito mansion with baby Archie in his arms – the infant’s face revealed in full.

We saw the first full-faced picture of Lilibet, too. A tiny baby at the time, the princess was pictured holding on tight to her mother’s hand.

There was more – all shared with Meghan’s four million Instagram followers (and counting).

The Duchess of Sussex posted a Father’s Day tribute to Prince Harry on Instagram

The Sussexes with their children, whose faces are obscured by hearts, at Disneyland in a post made on Meghan’s Instagram account last week

A delighted prince holds his baby daughter aloft. Lilibet sits in her father’s arms wearing pink protective headphones.

Doting dad feeds carrots to a horse on a visit to a petting farm…

The Sussexes’ careful policy of ensuring the children were never fully seen or photographed appears to be at an end.

Might this be at all connected with yesterday’s announcement that a new set of Meghan’s domestic products – including a new line of pancakes – will be on sale through her As Ever brand in just a few days’ time?

If it really is the case that Archie and Lilibet’s pictures were released to attract attention and encourage sales, then it would be truly shameful – a tawdry drive for profit by mega-bucks Meghan.

The ground, it seems to me, had been prepared.

Just a few days ago, we saw the Sussex kids in Disneyland, their faces covered on the screen by hearts. Enough of a tease in my book to make even the most cynical observers conclude this was a prelude to a ‘big reveal’.

What do the children really look like? (There are millions who genuinely want to know.)

A US-based media company was reportedly the driving force behind Meghan’s pregnant twerking video, which received more than 42million views online

Is Archie ginger like his now nearly bald dad?

Another question: just how many millions would Netflix pay for the first pictures of the kids?

A lot, I’d say.

Maybe there are hints here of what’s to come with the Sussexes’ newly revamped PR machine.

Appalled by terrible publicity in America – even the once-friendly Vanity Fair magazine derided them with the scathing cover headline ‘American Hustle’ – the Sussexes have parted company with trusted PR staff including Charlie Gibson and Kyle Boulia.

No change there, you might say, for a couple who lose staff faster than most of us can eat a prawn sandwich.

In their place comes a US-based media company called Method Communications.

Billing themselves as ‘disrupters who challenge the status quo’ they claim to ‘focus on crafting narratives that resonate with target audiences’.

The agency is reported to be the driving force behind Meghan and Harry releasing the very private video of a heavily pregnant Meghan twerking and dancing with a risibly hooded Harry in her maternity suite as they awaited the birth of baby Lilibet.

William is embraced by his children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis in the Waleses Father’s Day post

Forget for a moment why anyone would release a video of such an intimate moment and remember this: that when it comes to money-obsessed Meghan, there is often method in her madness.

Sure, the supposedly private couple could conceivably be accused of invading their own privacy in the maternity unit in a way that seems, at the least, hypocritical.

But Meghan won’t care about being mocked as long as she’s making money. That video of her twerking got more than 42million views.

And publicity is the foundation for sales, subscriptions – and profit.

Meghan already has a range of products on the market – and millions of views will do no harm at all to business.

Watch out for a new maternity line – for expectant twerkers.

People might watch to rubber neck, or laugh, but who cares when the cash rolls in?

But we can’t froget that this is coming from a prince who claims to be such a private person who wants to protect Archie and Lilibet from the hideous publicity he suffered, with brother William, as a child.

There are so  many questions to answer.

Why now, given their former stance, are the Sussexes revealing these intimate snaps of their children?

And why are the new pictures showing the prince and princess from years earlier, when they were infants?

Is this a hint there’s more to come?

Perhaps, as some suspect, this is a ploy to make yet more millions – that Meghan’s release of even more images of Archie and Lilibet is some kind of bartering tool – to cash in on her own kids. I truly hope not.

Is a call to the boss of Netflix scheduled in the diary?

Could her show, in future, be winsomely called With Love Meghan, Archie and Lilibet? Will the children help Mum stir up ‘one dish spag bol’, her derided signature?

Maybe the release of the childhood photos was intended to overshadow the future King William and Queen Catherine as they beamed pictures of their own children around the world on Father’s Day – an adorable picture of a family ‘pile-on’, with Dad being smothered by George, 11, Charlotte, ten, and Louis, seven.

Was it coincidence that the Sussexes’ intimate pictures of their family life clashed with the duke and duchess and their children’s appearance on the balcony at the magnificent Trooping the Colour, celebrating the official birthday of King Charles.

A few historical snaps of Harry hugging his kids will never truly compete with these scenes of joy – as William, Kate, George, Charlotte and Louis watched the Red Arrows soar overhead.

Call me naïve, but I do hope – and in the end I believe – that Harry’s almost obsessive protection of his children’s identities will triumph over any plans that Meghan might have to include them in her TV show.

That finally, one day, he will get out of the chicken coop of his marriage. That the prince will ensure his children are not monetised, certainly not for Netflix profit.

And I wish him luck. For Harry is up against Meghan’s mercantile ambitions – which know no bounds.