Archie’s private christening causes almighty storm

Britain’s Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been parents only for a matter of months, but they’re already being accused of being overly protective.

Criticism over the pair’s decision to keep baby Archie out of the spotlight has been mounting. And recent revelations — that British taxpayers footed a £ 2.4 million ( about $ 3 million) bill for a home renovation, and plans to keep his christening private — have done little to silence critics.

It’s worth noting that royal baptisms have traditionally been private affairs. However, in recent years, cameras have been allowed to capture the arrivals of the family and their guests. That was certainly the case for all three Cambridge children — George, Charlotte and Louis — although they are higher in the line of succession.

Harry and Meghan arranged a completely private ceremony for Archie on Saturday led by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a chapel inside Windsor Castle. The palace wouldn’t officially confirm who was to attend, though a royal source told CNN that fewer than 25 family and friends had been invited. No media would be at the event. Pictures taken by their personal photographer, Chris Allerton, were to be released after the service.

“Meghan can’t demand privacy for baby Archie while asking the public to fund her family’s lifestyle,” complained the Daily Telegraph. The Sunday Times quoted royal biographer Penny Junor as saying: “They can’t have it both ways. Either they are totally private, pay for their own house and disappear out of view, or play the game the way it is played.”

Even politicians weighed into the row. Labour Member of Parliament Luke Pollard told CNN: “When you’re still taking millions of pounds worth of public money — money that could be spent in schools and hospitals — to upgrade and refurbish what is, you know, luxury palaces, you’ve got to ask yourself: what are the public getting in return?”

He said, “They’re trying to get the public money for their lifestyle but not do the public duties that go along with it and that’s a question that is rightly being asked and debated here.”

This type of critique infuriates the # SussexSquad — a vociferous army of online supporters, particularly of Meghan.

An unlikely defender is Goldburn P. Maynard Jr., a law professor at the University of Louisville, who describes himself as an “ally” of the squad who steps in online to “amplify” the voices of # SussexSquad and call out cases of what he calls “misogynoir.”

“I don’t see any kind of contradiction between there being taxpayer funding or public funding and the royals asking for some privacy,” he told CNN. “Here, in the United States, we very much have a lot of public servants but we very well know their children are off limits and are able to have a private life and we are OK with that,” he said.

“The default when it comes to Meghan — because she is a foreigner and she’s not royal, from this society, etc. — is that when she does something, she is doing something that’s wrong. Women of color are actually really used to that narrative,” he said. “What a lot of us are seeing is that she is being held to a higher standard despite the fact that, in many ways, she’s hit the ground running.”