Harry and Meghan Introduce Baby Sussex - The New York Times

LONDON — The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, also known as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, presented their 2-day-old son to the world on Wednesday afternoon.

The baby, wrapped in a delicate, cream-colored blanket and wearing a white knit cap, slept through his first interview in his father’s arms.

His name, the subject of avid speculation and a substantial betting market, has not yet been announced.

“It’s magic,” the duchess said, when asked about motherhood. “I have the two best guys in the world, so I’m really happy.”

The baby, she said, “has the greatest temperament in the world; he’s really calm.”

“I don’t know who he gets that from,” his father said.

The infant’s other pressing business of the day was to meet Queen Elizabeth II, his great-grandmother.

It was difficult to ascertain much about the baby from the three-minute “media moment,” and when a journalist asked Prince Harry to show his son’s face to the cameras, he complied with an almost imperceptible tilt. Asked whom the baby takes after, Harry said, “We’re still trying to figure that out.”

“He’s already got a little bit of facial hair, as well,” he said. His wife giggled. “Wonderful.”

The duchess, a former actress who largely shies away from floral prints and frippery, wore a sleeveless, V-neck white dress with gold buttons for her first outing as a new mother, and Manolo Blahnik pumps with four-inch heels.

The baby’s name has not yet been announced.CreditPool photo by Dominic Lipinski

Interest in the child has been far more breathless than his position in the royal line of succession — he is seventh, after his father — would suggest.

As the first multiracial, half-American child born in the top echelons of the royal family, he has come to signify, for many, the monarchy’s progression into a more modern, inclusive era.

On his father’s side, his ancestry can be traced to the German ducal house of Saxe-Coburg, which Anglicized its name during World War I. Some of his ancestors on his mother’s side were born into slavery in the American south, migrating north and west to build new lives as free men and women.

He is also the son of a bona fide Hollywood celebrity, who has drawn a large and protective American fan base into the press-fueled drama of the British royal family.

Throughout the duchess’s pregnancy, the family seemed to be negotiating the boundary between public and private, a difficult balance in a country that, in exchange for supporting the royal family with tax revenues, demands a degree of access to their personal lives.

The Sussexes ruffled feathers by opting out of a maternity-ward photo opportunity, customary for the last four decades, in which the royal parents emerge onto the hospital steps to face hundreds of waiting photographers.

As an alternative, they invited in a handful of British reporters — one reporter, one still photographer, and two camera crews — for a 10-minute audience with the new family.

British journalists grumbled a little at the last-minute news that CBS, the American television network, would also be present at the Sussexes’ request.

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