Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, a two-month-old child whose unique genetic makeup makes him the seventh most qualified person in the world to sit on the British throne, renounced the devil and all his works and was received into the congregation of Christ’s flock on Saturday, according to the official Instagram account of his mother and father, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. His parents, whose other titles include Earl and Countess of Dumbarton and Baron and Baroness Kilkeel, have renounced the vain pomp and glory of the world on Archie’s behalf, in hopes that he will manfully fight under Christ’s banner against sin, the world, and the devil unto his life’s end.
The ceremony was conducted in the private chapel at Windsor Castle by His Grace the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Justin Welby, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England. It is not clear whether he followed the order of service from the 1662 edition of The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Church of England; Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, Pointed as they are to be Sung or Said in Churches: And the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating Bishops, Priests and Deacons; the more contemporary Common Worship version of the service; or the alternative 2014 service which omits mention of the devil. All three ceremonies are reputed to be equally effective in cleansing infants of original sin, the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to do evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit.
Mountbatten-Windsor received remission of his sins by spiritual regeneration while wearing a replica of a christening gown created when Princess Victoria participated in a similar religious ritual in 1841. Mountbatten-Windsor’s personal share of culpability for the Fall of Man was washed away with water from the River Jordan, a Middle Eastern body of water which has been famed for its sin-cleansing abilities since one itinerant preacher used it to baptize another itinerant preacher sometime around 28 A.D., a few years before both men were put to death by their respective states. The ceremonial water was carried in a gilded silver baptismal font purchased by the United Kingdom’s royal family in February of 1841 for about $30,000 in today’s money. The royals have not publicly revealed the identity of the royal baby’s godparents, but if you haven’t heard from them yet, it is probably safe to assume you didn’t get the nod. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex released a picture of their newly dead-unto-sin-and-living-unto-righteousness baby in his christening gown on Instagram:
In the front row are Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Sussex, Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge. Standing behind them are His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; Ms. Doria Ragland; Lady Sarah McCorquodale; Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes; and His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. The photo was taken by Chris Allerton in the Green Drawing Room at Windsor Castle; the proud parents are seated on a gilded mahogany sofa, one of a set of three commissioned by George IV in the 1820s, which was restored with newly-woven silk after a fire in 1992. Further details about the room’s furnishings and the ceremonial objects used to spiritually cleanse the royal baby can be found at the website of the Royal Collection Trust, a charity responsible for cataloging and conserving the family’s worldly possessions, which run the gamut from exotic objects d’art like a brass camel statuette presented to the future King Edward VII during a tour of India in the 1870s all the way to household items like a beautiful painted enamel and gold needle case that once belonged to King George III’s daughter, Princess Amelia.
