Prince Harry revealed in Spare that the last time the late monarch saw her great-grandchildren Archie and Lilibet, she was ‘delighted’ with one gesture from the children
The late Queen was not only a proud grandmother – but she also lived to welcome 12 great-grandchildren into the world.
And her grandson Prince Harry once reflected on his children’s last visit to see her before her death in 2022. Revealing all in his 2023 memoir Spare, the Duke of Sussex recalled the moment that the late monarch met Princess Lilibet, who was just shy of her first birthday at the time, alongside her then three-year-old brother Prince Archie.
Harry and Meghan had travelled to the UK with their two children for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022, with Harry recounting in his book how Archie had been practicing his bow ahead of seeing his great-grandmother.
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He recalled how he and his wife were separated by their children for several weeks due to the fact that they were in the UK when the Queen passed away several months after their visit, extending their stay in Harry’s home country.
Harry wrote of leaving the UK after the late monarch’s funeral: “The following morning, Meg and I left for America. For days and days we couldn’t stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight, though I also couldn’t stop picturing them with granny, the final visit.
“Archie was making deep, chivalrous bows, his baby sister Lilibet cuddling the monarch’s shins.” Recounting his grandmother’s response, he said she referred to them as the “sweetest children”, while “sounding bemused”.
“She’d expected them to be a bit more… American, I think? Meaning, in her mind, more rambunctious,” he added. “Now, while overjoyed to be home again, doing drop-offs again, reading Giraffes Can’t Dance again, I couldn’t stop remembering.”
During the Sussexes trip to the UK for the Platinum Jubilee was the first and only time the late Queen was introduced to her great-granddaughter Lilibet, who was named after her.
At the time, a royal expert spoke about how keen Prince Harry was for his late grandmother to take a photo with his young daughter, but rumours suggested that Queen Elizabeth refused the photo due to having a bloodshot eye.
Writing in the Telegraph , royal expert Camilla Tominey claims Harry was “persistent” in wanting a photo to be taken.
She says: “When the couple made another beeline for Windsor Castle, travelling straight there after landing at Farnborough Airport, she refused their request to have professional photographs taken with Archie, three, and her namesake Lilibet, one.
“Claiming she had a bloodshot eye, she adroitly denied the Sussexes the photo opportunity they craved. Harry was ‘persistent’, according to those party to the meeting, expressing a desire to get an official snap of the two Lilibets together at some point in the future. But of course, it was never to be. She died three months later.”
