The day that a world-renowned anthropologist met baby Archie – and the rather tart exchange that followed…

Dr Jane Goodall is renowned the world over as an expert on chimpanzee behaviour.

But it didn’t take a anthropologist to interpret the very direct signals coming from Harry and Meghan when Dr Goodall paid them a visit shortly after the birth of their first child, Archie.

As royal author Robert Lacey tells it, Dr Goodall had been allowed to hold the newborn and give him a cuddle, one of the first outside the family to do so.

But when Dr Good pretended to make baby Archie do ‘the Queen’s wave’, she got a rather tart response. 

The Duke of Sussex hugs Dr Jane Goodall as he attends her Roots & Shoots Global Leadership Meeting at Windsor Castle in 2019

Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward wave to the crowds from the balcony at Buckingham Palace

The Duke of Sussex and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, hold their baby son Archie during a visit to the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation in Cape Town in 2019

This was May, 2019 when, according to Lacey, the Duchess of Sussex was combining the new duties of motherhood with work on a special edition of Vogue magazine, which she had been asked to guest-edit.

Harry was to make his own contribution to her ‘Forces for CHANGE’ edition by interviewing Dr Goodall – which was why she had joined them at the newly renovated Frogmore Cottage, briefly their home, near Windsor Castle.

‘Meghan came into the room as the interview drew to a close,’ writes Lacey in his best-selling biography, Battle of Brothers.

‘She was holding the newborn Archie tenderly in her arms and she offered the baby to the 85-year-old Goodall,’ who takes up the story.

‘He was very tiny and very sleepy,’ she recalls. ‘I think I was one of the first to cuddle him outside the family. I made Archie do “the Queen’s Wave” saying “I suppose he’ll have to learn this.”

Harry’s reaction brooked no doubt:

‘No! He’s not growing up like that.’ 

Prince Harry and Meghan Duchess of Sussex pose together with their newborn son Archie  in Windsor, 2019

World-famous anthropologist Dr Jane Goodall

Frogmore Cottage – comprising a number of dwellings knocked into one – was briefly home to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex

Princess Elizabeth demonstrates the royal wave in 1951. She is pictured arriving at the Norwegian Embassy for a dinner party hosted by King Haakon VII of Norway

Prince Harry greets crowd of admirers from the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 2011 following the wedding of his brother, William, to Catherine

A young Prince Harry shows he’s learned how to wave. He is pictured with his mother as they arrive at Mrs Mynors’s nursery school in 1987

It was just a few months later in January 2020 that the Sussexes announced they would step back from frontline royal duties and spend more time in North America.

In June 2021, Archie was joined by a baby sister called Lilibet – the  pet name for Harry’s late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The Sussexes have been understandably protective of their children’s privacy. 

Harry made his views on royal life abundantly clear in his explosive memoir, Spare, published in early 2022, in which he railed against the conventions and restrictions of the British Royal Family.