Prince Harry has already hinted that his second child – announced on Sunday – could be his and Meghan Markle’s last baby.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex revealed to the world Archie will have a new sibling on Valentine’s Day.
In 2019, Harry told activist and chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall he would only have two children for the sake of the planet, the Mirror reports.
He said: “I think, weirdly, because of the people that I’ve met and the places that I’ve been fortunate enough to go to, I’ve always had a connection and a love for nature. I view it differently now, without question.
“I’ve always wanted to try and ensure that, even before having a child and hoping to have children…”
Dr Goodall jumped in – saying she hoped the parents would have “not too many” kids.
And Prince Harry replied: “Two, maximum!
“But I’ve always thought: this place is borrowed. And, surely, being as intelligent as we all are, or as evolved as we all are supposed to be, we should be able to leave something better behind for the next generation.”
Last November, it emerged Meghan had suffered a miscarriage.
She wrote in an article for the New York Times how she sat “in a hospital bed, watching my husband’s heart break as he tried to hold the shattered pieces of mine”.
“I knew, as I clutched my firstborn child, that I was losing my second,” she said.
Harry and Meghan quit as senior working royals in March 2020 to be able to earn their own money in the US and be free of royal constraints.
Home for the Sussex family is now an £11 million forever house in Montecito, California, and the couple have secured multimillion-pound deals with Netflix and Spotify.
The duke and duchess’s first child Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born on May 6 2019, and the duke described his birth as “the most amazing experience I could ever have possibly imagined”.
Introducing the two-day-old to the world at Windsor Castle, Meghan said: “It’s magic, it’s pretty amazing. I have the two best guys in the world so I’m really happy.”
She added: “He has the sweetest temperament, he’s really calm.”
The duke and duchess are protective over Archie’s privacy, and will be perhaps even more so with their new baby, after stepping down from royal duties.
It is thought unlikely the couple will introduce the new member of their family in the same way.