Is baby Lilibet the healer Harry really needs?

Was a Royal baby’s arrival ever more impeccably timed? With relations between the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the rest of the Royal family reportedly still at a low ebb after Prince Harry unleashed on American television what he called “truth bombs” about members of his family, along comes Lilibet ‘Lili’ Diana to soothe all rifts, to help wounded parties forget that any unpleasantness ever happened.

Or, at least, that is what Royal well-wishers and courtiers alike are hoping.

For the birth last Friday of the eighth in line to the throne, Prince Charles’s fifth grandchild and the Queen’s 11th great-grandchild, comes as the countdown begins to next summer’s Platinum Jubilee, the next landmark state occasion in the Royal calender, marking Her Majesty’s 70 years on the throne.

It is also a matter of mere days before both Prince William and Harry are expected to appear together in public together, at the unveiling of a statue to their late mother at Kensington Palace, on what would have been the 60th birthday of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Before she is even a month old, Lilibet could yet prove herself to be a ‘Band-Aid baby’ – a sticking plaster in Royal form to return the family to some form of normality after the turbulent year and a half since Megxit sparked several rounds of very public – and occasionally painful – soul-baring.

Prince Harry wasn’t always so outspoken about such matters. He was only 12 when his mother died, and for years afterwards kept his feelings of loss to himself. While Prince William once said he didn’t want the tragedy of his mother’s death to “break” him (instead, he wanted it to “make” him), Harry has often looked unhappy and resentful, as if he can’t move on.

In conversations with me for his biography, Harry admitted: “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help? I told myself: ‘It’s only going to make you sad. It’s not going to bring her back.’”

He reluctantly sought therapy, and is now no longer embarrassed by his need – even allowing himself to be filmed during a specialist therapy session for The Me You Can’t See, his mental health documentary series on Apple TV with Oprah Winfrey.

He told me when we chatted at Kensington Palace a while back that he believes his mother is “looking down” on him and “guiding him through” his life. He said during his engagement interview on BBC TV that Diana would have been best friends with Meghan and jumped up and down in excitement. During his recent interview with Oprah, he declared: “I think she saw [him leaving the Royal family]. I certainly felt her presence throughout this whole process.”

Now, with a new baby daughter to add to his family, his attitude to life could change, and he might even recover from his “genetic pain”. I remember Harry telling me he was “especially good at cuddles”; Lilibet Diana, who provides a positive genetic link to his mother, could be on the receiving end and adore him in return.

He might even get over the guilt he still feels over when Diana rang him when he was on holiday at Balmoral with his father the day before she died, and he cut short the conversation because he was having fun playing with his cousins. He has said he can never forgive himself for it.

Harry’s harsh allegations in public against his family come at a time he should have been bouncing with happiness. More than a year has gone by since March 2020, when he embraced the freedom he longed for and with Meghan left the UK to start a new life in the US. He married a woman he loves and admires, became father to Archie, now aged two, had the freedom to bring him up in any way he chose, and proved he can be a hands-on and very involved father – which, he complains, Prince Charles was not. During his TV interview with Winfrey in March, he spoke of his pride in his growing young family, saying: "To have a boy and then a girl... what more can you ask for? But now... we – we’ve got our family. We’ve got, you know, the four of us and our two dogs, and it’s great."

He has also had plenty of offers of lucrative work.

But perhaps despite his new life, I suspect he is unhappier than we think, and remains haunted by a catalogue of grievances. Why has he only recently been negative about Prince William, whom he had previously said was the only person he “could trust”? Ditto Prince Charles (Harry stated in 2018 that “I don’t think people realise quite how kind he is”), and even his 95-year-old grandmother the Queen, whom he “hugely admires”?

Yet during his conversation with Winfrey, he insisted he was being “compassionate”, told “the truth” and hoped that it would leave room to reconcile with his family. Yet he has badly wounded the very people he seemed to be trying to reconnect with.

It makes one wonder if the outpouring of the pain and frustration he has felt about his family and his brutal verbal attacks have been a way to cope with just how much he still misses his mother, and how much underneath it all he aches to get his family back. If he doesn’t, surely he wouldn’t bother talking about them.

The best intentions can backfire, however, and calling his daughter Lilibet – which has been widely interpreted as the Sussexes “reaching out” to the Queen – may yet do just that.

The Queen’s grandfather, King George V, used to call her Lilibet to gently tease her as, when she was small, she couldn’t pronounce her name properly. Prince Philip subsequently used it as a loving nickname for the Queen, and she might not be pleased for it to be passed on – especially if Harry and Meghan intend to use it as a name for another foundation (their first company, Archewell, is named after their first-born) and subsequent commercial deals. Americans who adored Diana are likely to be thrilled that they have a descendent to secure a position in their hearts.

While news stories suggest Prince Harry told the Queen in advance of his daughter’s birth that he and Meghan wanted to name the baby after her, might he have missed out telling her that their chosen name was Lilibet rather than Elizabeth? In 2019, when he asked the Queen if he could film a series about mental health with Oprah Winfrey, the emphasis was placed on it being about traumas suffered by ex-servicemen and women, rather than the Prince’s own mental health and his suffering from his family’s “total neglect”.

Fortunately, families are forever, and while you can angrily part with a friend because of something they did or said, the family is more than likely to want to clear the air.

That has been made more difficult now that the Sussexes lives in Santa Barbara, California, and that Harry’s stepping back from Royal duty means Prince William and the Prince of Wales have more engagements to attend to, the Queen having further cut back her workload as she grieves for Prince Philip.

Meghan’s views also have to be taken into consideration, but here the omens aren’t good: she doesn’t have any contact with her father or half-siblings.

It had been hoped that the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral would have provided an occasion for both sides to try to heal some wounds. However, Harry only stayed in Windsor for a few days, and such a hefty falling-out cannot be repaired in a hurry. Nor was the atmosphere right. It was proper that the family’s focus was firmly on the life and achievements of the beloved 99-year-old Duke, rather than Harry’s grievances.

A new arrival into the Royal family is perhaps the next best chance for all sides to come together, meaning Lilibet Diana could unwittingly be the human sticking plaster that patches up the rift. When an innocent baby smiles, it’s hard not to smile back.

But this may all depend on Harry seizing the opportunity to have his daughter christened in the UK. It could also provide the excuse Meghan needs to return to these shores, something that seems unlikely even with the unveiling of a Diana statue in Kensington Palace’s Sunken Garden on July 1.

How significant it would be if a baby with the middle name Diana ushered in a new Royal era, one where both sides understood what the other needed and were united again.

Angela Levin is the author of Harry: Conversations with the Prince. Buy now for £7.99 at books.telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514