Prince Harry 'sends telling message to King Charles in Christmas card'

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sent a telling message with this year's Christmas card, a royal expert has claimed. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared a series of images on their official Christmas card.

It included a rare picture of their children Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three. Harry and Meghan can be seen outside as their children - whose faces are not shown - run towards them.

The couple tend to keep their young children shielded from the limelight. According to body language expert Judi James, the photo is designed to show their family love - something Harry has previously claimed he did not always receive from his father King Charles.

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In his memoir Spare, Harry claimed his dad did not hug him when he told him his late mother Princess Diana had died, Mirror reports. Judi said: "This pose tends to show how far Harry and Meghan have moved away from their first Xmas card with Archie.

"Back then it was Arching face-on and close up to the camera, very much the star of the pose, as his two casually dressed parents watched adoringly in the background. Here though the emphasis is on privacy with the children shown from back view only, rushing into their parents' arms as though finding their security and love there.

"It's a very evenly balanced pic in terms of tactile family love, which would be important to Harry given his own childhood. There is mooted to be a more personalised card for friends that will presumably show more of the traditional front-view family faces, but for this card, there seems to be a bit of a veil of privacy thrown over the children, with only their parent's responses to them visible."

Judi claimed Harry is the most dominant among the series of pictures. She added: "As a mood board for the Sussex's year, the body language narrative presented here looks obvious as we are allowed to glimpse the duo looking: successful, caring, passionately in love and deeply besotted as protective parents.

"In body language terms this card is like one of those round-robin cards people used to send in the days before social media, a rather impersonal boast about achievements and successes of the year. The tactile behaviours here involve caring hugs and even healing-looking touches for people they have met on their tours and then, of course, their most powerful PDA of the year as a couple, when Meghan leant back onto Harry's manly torso with her arms crossed over her chest in an act of romantic release and Harry reciprocated with a tender kiss on the head.

"In terms of status, these poses tend to swing in Harry's favour, making him look not just the hero adored by Meghan but also rather dominant, laughing to a group as she gazes admiringly or standing with his free hand stuffed into his trouser pocket as she leans onto him."