The pictures published around the world this week of Meghan Markle snuggling son Archie to her chest while Kate Middleton played with her three children nearby and both women watched their husbands compete in a polo match were a heartwarming and, most consumers of the international media might assume, candid portrait of the royals at play.
Well, much as one hates to be a killjoy, the fact is that these photos were just as meticulously staged as were the notorious photographs of Thomas Markle lifting weights on a municipal waste site, checking websites about the British monarchy, and getting measured for a suit.
The pictures were taken with long lenses by photographers kept at a decent distance to give an illusion of candor, but a select band of photographers were authorized to be there and briefed, just as they are for this same event every year, on exactly where the royals would be parked and in what time window they would like to be snapped.