Prince Harry and Meghan Markle introduce royal baby - in pictures

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have introduced their newborn son to the world.

Appearing in St George’s Hall at Windsor Castle, Meghan described her first few days of being a parent: “It’s magic, it’s pretty amazing. I have the two best guys in the world so I’m really happy.”

Prince Harry added: “It’s great. Parenting is amazing. It’s only been two and a half days, three days, but we’re just so thrilled to have our own little bundle of joy.”

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Messages of congratulations have poured in since the Duchess gave birth to the new royal, weighing 7lb 3oz at 5.26am on Monday morning.

Buckingham Palace said that the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were all “delighted” by the news. The monarch is expected to meet her eighth great-grandchild later today.

Prince William earlier welcomed his brother to “the sleep deprivation society that is parenting”.

Meghan's mother, Doria Ragland, was said to be “overjoyed”, while her father, Thomas Markle, said he was sure that the baby “would grow up to serve the crown and the people of Britain with grace, dignity, and honour”.

According to The Times, “resolute in their quest for privacy and determined to have a birth that reflected their personalities and values rather than the established practices of the past”, the couple “took every step to ensure that their first child came into a world that was as much California as it was Windsor”.

Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail said that the way the pregnancy and birth were handled shows that it is the couple, rather than Buckingham Palace, that is in charge. She wrote: “Everything is meticulously mapped out, thought through to the very last detail, in order to ensure they – and no one else – own the agenda.”

On CNN, the playwright Bonnie Greer added that the baby “comes into the world at a time when the UK is examining its very being because of Brexit, and when the country is not a great place to be a foreigner or to be perceived as an ‘other.’”