So we know he’s called Archie and that he weighed 7lb 3oz.

We don’t know how much he’ll cost.

Before anyone denounces those living on benefits as scroungers, consider others who are living a life of luxury at the taxpayers’ expense, and who regard a 10-bedroom listed building with stables attached as a cottage.

It seems that Harry and Meghan – sorry, “the Duke and Duchess of Sussex” – are keen to keep their newborn baby out of the media spotlight and not parade him before the cameras in the same way that William and Kate have paraded their children.

That is very wise and understandable, though it’s probably impossible. There are too many royal worshippers with too much of an appetite for news and pictures of the Windsor family. So national papers and celebrity magazines want to feed that.

It’s nothing new, of course. The Queen made her first appearance on the cover of Time magazine when she was three.

And this to my mind is one of the most damaging aspects of the whole royal soap opera and hysteria over their babies. The members of the family – whether they marry into it or are born into it – can never escape the relentless attentions of the media. That cannot help but inflict enormous psychological harm on them.

There’s a difference when you’re born a royal. Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle will now have cameras round every corner for the rest of their lives. But at least they caught a glimpse of a normal life before their marriages.

Those who are royal from birth will have no idea. Princess Margaret said how much she’d love to travel on a bus, just once.

Charles was taken to his primary school in a limousine every morning and the royal staff began to bow to him when he was in his early teens. When he was 16 all adults had to call him “sir”.

There’s the extraordinary footage of him, aged just five, standing in line to greet his mother when she returned from a six-month visit to Australia, to shake her hand. Wasn't that psychologically harmful?

Later he married a 19-year-old girl whom he didn’t love and barely knew. Diana confirmed that she had only met Charles 13 times before their wedding.

Camilla was on the scene from their wedding night. When Diana asked why, he told her: “I won’t be the only Prince of Wales without a mistress.”

What must that have done to her state of mind? Is it any wonder she had her own affairs, and developed an eating disorder?

She was the most damaged royal of all. No-one can possibly claim that she wouldn’t have had a happier life – and almost certainly a longer life – if she had never got involved with the Windsors in the first place.

Or take Prince Harry’s words. In an interview two years ago he said: “Is there anyone in the royal family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so.”

He won’t want it for his son, niece or nephews either. Yet the pro-monarchists are determined to force it on them. Those who claim to admire them so much inflict that cruelty.

Some people accept that having a royal family is a bit silly but argue that they do a lot for tourism – which is untrue as well as irrelevant. The Cumbrian lakes and Hadrian’s Wall won’t disappear if the monarchy does. The Palace of Versailles didn’t disappear along with the French monarchy.

But leave aside the other pros and cons and consider the psychological damage that the individuals suffer. We need to abolish the monarchy not just for our sakes but also for theirs, and allow them to be normal mums and dads of small children, not paraded like zoo animals.

Diana’s brother Earl Spencer said after her death: “It would appear that every proprietor and editor of every publication that has paid for intrusive and exploitative photographs of her… has blood on their hands today.”

The same applies to all those people who bought the publications and gawped at the pictures. There would have been no paparazzi if there were no monarchy fans.

It’s time to spare the next generation of Windsors what previous ones have endured.

And my suspicion is that the monarchy does some psychological harm not just to its own members but to wider society.

Does anyone sincerely believe that one family is deserving of our taxes because they are naturally better than the rest of us?

If so, why?