Queen Meets Lilibet During Private Lunch at Windsor Castle
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Queen Elizabeth has met Lilibet, the 1-year-old daughter of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who was named after her.
The meeting happened at Windsor Castle, where the couple and their family were invited to join the queen for lunch Thursday, after they attended the official birthday celebrations for the queen known as Trooping the Color.
Omid Scobie, the author who is thought to be close to the Sussexes, told the BBC that the meeting had happened.
Scobie co-authored the book Finding Freedom, for which he was privately briefed by Meghan’s office when she was still a member of the royal family.
The Daily Mail reports that he told the BBC: He said: “I think people are expecting some sort of big birthday extravagant event, that we’re going to see photographs from. From what I’m told, we shouldn’t expect anything.
“Those moments with Lilibet are very much private between them and the queen and of course we know how much she’s been looking forward to it.
“They’ve been held back by a pandemic. Of course the times that Harry has been here it’s just been by himself for quite somber occasions. And so this really was the first time.
“Of course we know the queen went back to Windsor Castle yesterday, the couple went back to Windsor as well where they’re staying at Frogmore Cottage. So that would have been the first moment or the first chance for her to meet her namesake.”
The revelation that the queen has privately met Lilibet will represent a symbolically important chance to heal one of the most significant and public running sores to have developed between California and London since the couple departed royal life in 2020.
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The issue around Lilibet was particularly pronounced owing to the fact that the couple originally implied that they had sought the queen’s permission to use the name for their daughter—it’s a version of Elizabeth that was the queen’s nickname when she was a child. It was also the name used by her late husband, Prince Philip, to refer to her affectionately. However the queen’s office subsequently briefed the BBC that the queen had no idea in advance that the child would be called that.
The royal family will be hoping, as well as the Sussexes, that the meetup will now draw a line under such fractious concerns.
The revelation emerged on Friday morning, the second day of jubilee celebrations, which were overshadowed by the announcement Thursday night by the queen that she would not be attending a service of Thanksgiving in her honor today at St. Paul’s Cathedral, because she had suffered with discomfort during yesterday’s celebrations. Although the rest of the royal family and Sussexes are expected to attend, Prince Andrew, the queen’s disgraced middle son, has also pulled out, citing coronavirus.
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