Royal followers have wanted to see Queen Elizabeth and Lilibet meet each other ever since Prince Harry’s baby girl was born—and now, the Queen is even more eager to make it happen.
Lilibet, whose full name is Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, was born in June 2021 in Santa Barbara, California. She continues to live there with her parents Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, and her older brother Archie Harrison. At the time of her birth, Harry and Meghan revealed that baby Lili was named after the Queen herself: “Lili is named after her great-grandmother, Her Majesty The Queen, whose family nickname is Lilibet,” they shared in a statement at the time (her middle name, meanwhile, was chosen to honor her late grandmother, Princess Diana.) Now, months after little Lili was welcomed into the world, she has yet to meet her great-grandmother in person.
Harry and Meghan made sure to introduce baby Lili to her great-grandmother virtually, however. According to The Royal Observer, the monarch met the newest addition to the family over Zoom shortly after she was born. “Meghan is now resting at home and she and Harry have already introduced the Queen to her great-granddaughter via Zoom,” an insider told the site in June 2021, adding at the time, “Since the couple moved to L.A., the Queen has become very familiar with Zoom. She talks to Harry, Meghan and Archie via technology, and now she is using it to meet her granddaughter. She is a very modern grandmother.”
Still, that doesn’t mean the Queen isn’t hoping to meet her great-granddaughter in person one day. According to royal author Brian Hoey, the Queen “desperately” wants to see Lilibet in person now that traveling is safer. “I have heard from people I know within the Royal Household, she really would desperately like to see the baby in this way,” Hoey told The Express in March 2022. “I think she would love to, I wonder whether it is going to happen, I would love to think it could.”
The Queen’s desire to meet her great-granddaughter Lilibet comes after a series of recent health troubles, including her COVID-19 diagnosis in February 2022 and hospitalization in November 2021. Understandably, these recent setbacks have made the possibility of meeting her grandson’s daughter more urgent. Prince Harry, however, has struggled in recent months with the decision to bring his family to the United Kingdom due to a series of security concerns. In early 2022, news broke that the Duke of Sussex petitioned the British court to allow him to pay for private security during his travels to the UK. The British government refused his security proposal, however, leaving Harry to file an appeal insisting that he and his family require extra protection while visiting his homeland.
“Prince Harry inherited a security risk at birth, for life. He remains sixth in line to the throne, served two tours of combat duty in Afghanistan, and in recent years his family has been subjected to well-documented neo-Nazi and extremist threats,” read a January 2022 statement from the duke’s legal team. “While his role within the Institution has changed, his profile as a member of the royal family has not. Nor has the threat to him and his family.”
The statement went on to note that while Harry and Meghan pay for their own security team in the U.S., they “cannot replicate the necessary protection needed whilst in the U.K.” without the British government’s permission. “In absence of such protection, Prince Harry and his family are unable to return home.”
“The U.K. will always be Prince Harry’s home and country he wants his wife and children to be safe in,” the statement concluded. “With the lack of police protection, comes too great a personal risk. Prince Harry hopes that his petition—after close to two years of pleas for security in the UK—will resolve this situation.” Until then, it seems that Queen Elizabeth and Lilibet’s meeting will have to wait.
Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch
Image: Courtesy of Random House.
For more about the British royal family, check out Sally Bedell Smith’s 2012 biography, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch
. The New York Times bestseller, which includes the “real story” behind several storylines featured in Netflix’s The Crown, follows Queen Elizabeth II’s life from her childhood as the “heiress presumptive” to her father, King George VI; to the moment he et her husband, Prince Philip, when she was 13 years old; to her ascension to the throne at 25 years old in 1952. Elizabeth the Queen, which also includes interviews with Buckingham Palace sources and never-before-revealed documents, provides a deep dive into the Queen’s legacy as one of the most famous monarchs in recent history.
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