Prince Harry’s 40th birthday sparked shock public messages from his estranged royal relatives.

Both the social media accounts of King Charles and the Prince and Princess of Wales marked the Duke of Sussexes’ milestone birthday with a message on both X and Instagram. The official royal account went first and posted a striking image of a beaming Harry with the message: “Wishing The Duke of Sussex a very happy 40th birthday today!”

Minutes later the same post was shared on William and Kate’s account with the message: “Wishing a Happy 40th Birthday to The Duke of Sussex!” The snap used in both posts shows Harry smiling during an engagement when he was a working royal on a trip he and wife Meghan Markle made to Ireland in 2018.

It was taken at the Dogpatch Labs start-up in Dublin in July of that year and online sleuths claimed the birthday posts made a dig at Meghan by cropping her out of the post. That’s because there is a wider shot of the image, which shows Harry sitting at a table with his wife along with other guests.

However, it seems that there are in fact two versions of the picture available – the wider shot and one that has already been pre-cropped by the photographer, which just features Harry and is available for use through picture agencies, such as Getty Images.

Getty Images confirmed to the Mirror that the photo is a pool image collected from a non-Getty Images photographer – but added that it is “standard practice to crop images to get singles, as has been done here”. Therefore it is likely the Royal Family official accounts did not crop Meghan out of the image themselves – and rather they chose the available single pre-cropped image of Harry to use in the post, given he was the one celebrating his 40th birthday.

It comes as Harry, who lives in California after stepping down from the working monarchy, is believed to have spent his birthday on Sunday with Meghan and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet. He is then said to have headed away for a gathering with close friends.

Harry enters his fifth decade in what has been a rollercoaster year for the royal family, with both the King and the Princess of Wales being diagnosed with cancer. When the King’s shock health news was announced in February, Harry made a transatlantic dash to see him but his meeting with his father was kept to just 45 minutes.

In comments released to the BBC, the duke said “I was anxious about 30, I’m excited about 40”, and described how fatherhood had given him a renewed sense of purpose to make “this world a better place”.

Harry’s year has seen him try his hand at the skeleton bobsled when he joined Invictus Games competitors training in Canada, and undertake quasi-royal tours to Colombia and Nigeria. The duke has an upcoming trip to New York later this month, where he will carry out visits for his Archewell Foundation, and engagements with African Parks, The Halo Trust, The Diana Award, and Travalyst.