Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
First published in 1943, the weedy prince with a shock of golden hair is the most famous work of the French aristocrat and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The most read and most translated book in the French language, The Little Prince sells more than 1m copies a year and is one of the best-selling books of all time. Le Petit Prince is the best kind of royal, an extra-terrestrial: he has fallen to Earth from an asteroid. Most of all, though, he’s a bit of a philosopher: “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart” Photograph: PR
Brave
Of course there’s a royal princess – Merida, voiced by Kelly Macdonald – in Brave (2012), the Disney film for which Pixar rewrote its animation system for the first time in 25 years. But the real stars of the film are her demented baby triplet brothers, Harris, Hubert and Hamish. They torment their father, King Fergus (Billy Connolly), spend most of their time hiding in the hidden passages of the castle, and will do anything for cake. Their sister is one of the only people who can tell them apart. Weirdly, they look like girls. But I would not say that to their faces Photograph: PR
Tony Ross
The first Little Princess book, I Want My Potty!, was published in 1986. A girl with scraggy brown hair and what looks suspiciously like a Christmas cracker crown, the Little Princess is the original lovable, wrongly accused brat with many wants (I Want My Dinner! I Want a Sister! I Want My Mum!) and also some existential aspirations (I Want to Be). Illustrator Tony Ross, also the creator of the Horrid Henry drawings, says: “I don’t write down to children, I try to understand their world and write up to it” Photograph: Andersen Publishers
Shrek the Third
A precursor to the triplets in Brave, Shrek also has a trio: Fargus (boy), Fergle (boy) and Felicia (girl). It’s not an easy ride for Shrek and Fiona during her pregnancy with the ogre triplets (in Shrek the Third, 2007). Fiona becomes the acting queen of the Kingdom of Far Far Away while her father is ill and Prince Charming tries to stage an invasion to appoint himself king. With the help of various princesses, including Snow White, he is thwarted. In the next film, though, Shrek Forever After (2010), Shrek gets so stressed about being an overnight father-of-three that he wishes he had never been born. Unfortunately, Rumpelstiltskin is listening and grants him his wish Photograph: PR
Tangled
Rapunzel as a baby in Tangled (2010) is one of the most adorable, chubby cherubs ever, born with a full head of Brigitte Bardot hair. Reportedly the most expensive animated film ever made, the title was changed from “Rapunzel” to Tangled at the last minute to keep the appeal “gender-neutral”. An enchantress heals a pregnant queen with a magic flower and the queen gives birth to a baby with magic hair. The enchantress steals the baby so that she can look like Cher for the rest of her life. (The magic hair keeps you young. If you sing the right song while wrapping it around you) Photograph: PR
Nicholas Allan
“Meet the Royal Baby! And meet Nanny, who looks after the Royal Nappy Cabinet!” The duke and duchess depicted bear an uncanny resemblance to William and Kate, although it’s an overly generous hair allocation for William. The Royal Baby gets to use his nappy as a parachute in a helicopter emergency, use a nappy as a flag for a royal visit, and do a lot of sliding along palace floors on his bottom. The Royal Nappy is a new children’s book, out just at the right time, from Nicholas Allan, author of such classics as The Queen’s Knickers, Where Willy Went and Father Christmas Needs a Wee Photograph: PR
Disney
We only see Aurora as a baby fleetingly in Disney’s 1959 film of Sleeping Beauty. Born to King Stefan and Queen Leah, Aurora is cursed at her christening by Maleficent, the bad fairy. Before the sun sets on her 16th birthday, she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. She is whisked off to a woodcutter’s cottage to grow up as Briar Rose instead. Intriguingly, Aurora put a bit of a royal curse on Disney. The film did badly at the box office and Disney didn’t make any more animated films until The Little Mermaid in 1989 Photograph: PR
The Winter’s Tale
There are not many babies in Shakespeare. But the mainstay of the plot of The Winter’s Tale is the pleading of a pregnant woman for one king to stay a while longer… King Leontes of Sicilia begs his childhood friend King Polixenes of Bohemia to extend his stay in Sicilia. When Leontes’s pregnant wife, Hermione, also starts lobbying for her husband’s best friend to stick around, Leontes starts to believe that Polixenes and Hermione are having an affair – and his wife may even be carrying his best friend’s child. Polixenes flees and Hermione gives birth to a girl, Perdita, in prison Photograph: Donald Cooper
Helen
There’s no royal baby more divine than Helen of Troy as depicted in Euripides’s play Helen, written around 400BC. The daughter of Zeus and Leda, the wife of the Spartan king Tyndareus, she was conceived when Zeus “sought refuge” with Leda at a time when he had taken on the form of a swan because he was being pursued by an eagle (fair enough). “The swan gained her affection and the two mated.” An egg emerged from Leda and then Helen emerged from the egg. A rival account claims Zeus was a goose not a swan. It seems academic. Anyway, Helen grew up to be the most beautiful woman in the world Photograph: The Gallery Collection/Corbis
The Royle Family
The most Royle of all the babies, the child of Denise Best, nee Royle (Caroline Aherne), and David “Dave” Best (Craig Cash) was known as Baby David. He is frequently abandoned in favour of the pub and causes consternation among older members of the family because Denise leaves Dave to look after him most of the time. Jim (Ricky Tomlinson) is memorably disgusted when Denise breastfeeds Baby David. There was a lesser-known Royle child, too, who emerged during a 2006 special, The Queen of Sheba: Norma, a daughter named after the mother of Barbara Royle (Sue Johnston) Photograph: PR
