Harry ‘desperate for Archie to have childhood free of pomp and royalty’

Primatologist Jane Goodall has told how the Duke of Sussex felt constrained and desperately wanted his son to grow up away from “pomp and royalty”.

Harry and Meghan are dropping their HRH styles and stepping down from royal duties in search of freedom away from the monarchy, and will raise Archie Mountbatten-Windsor mostly in Canada.

The duke interviewed world-renowned activist and chimpanzee expert Dr Goodall for Meghan’s guest editing of Vogue last year and told her they would only have two children, for the sake of the planet.

Harry and Meghan, both huge fans of Dr Goodall, invited her to Frogmore Cottage in June last year, where she cuddled Archie, then five weeks old.

Dr Goodall said of the couple’s decision to walk away from royal life: “Well it doesn’t surprise me, having met them both.”

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I know that Prince Harry really felt constrained and he desperately wants little Archie to grow up away from all the pomp and royalty, I know that.

“I haven’t been in the UK. I haven’t really followed the news… I had no idea that anything like this was going to happen.”

She added of Harry: “I just think he’s a wonderful, wonderful person and we had a great interview … and I gather that Meghan wanted to interview me and he said, ‘No, I’m going to interview Jane’.”

The Sussexes’ official Instagram account said at the time that Harry and Dr Goodall had “an intimate conversation on environment, activism, and the world as they see it”.