The British royal family’s most recent drama has to do with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle‘s daughter Lilibet. The child was named after Queen Elizabeth’s childhood nickname, and the late monarch was reportedly furious about her being named without her permission.
There is already enough drama around the royal family, and it gained much prominence after Prince Harry released his memoir ‘Spare‘ last year. The Netflix show ‘Harry & Meghan‘ also added more to the fire as the prince revealed a lot of secrets and made some problematic comments against the royal family. As the controversy around Princess Lilibet’s name still continues, a royal expert has now explained what exactly it is about.
Why Queen Elizabeth Was Furious At Prince Harry And Meghan Markle
The Lilibet controversy is far from over and Robert Hardman’s new biography, ‘The Making of a King: King Charles III and the Modern Monarchy’ is set to add more to it. While Hardman’s book chiefly delves into king Charles’ journey as a monarch in the modern era, it touches upon several other issues. One of those issues is Lilibet’s name and the Queen’s reaction to it.
According to the Hardman, the late Queen Elizabeth was “as angry as I’d ever seen her” after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle publicly announced that they had received approval to name their daughter after the monarch’s childhood moniker.
Shedding more light on the situation, Hardman pointed out that the controversy lies not in the queen’s objection to sharing her name but in the way the Sussexes publicly portrayed the situation. “I think it depends on how you look at the story,” Hardman told the New York Post. “The thing about this particular episode, all the way along, has been that in a sense, both sides are right.”
“The issue was the handling,” he further explained. “The issue was being told to say that she had given it her blessing when it had clearly been a case of, [she] had been informed,” he added.
“Her ringing endorsement was not sought, not given, and you don’t put words in the queen’s mouth. That’s effectively what was going on there,” Hardman claimed during the interview.
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The Lilibet Controversy Deepens Amid Conflicting Claims
The initial reports from the BBC claimed that the queen was not consulted about the use of her nickname. However, some sources close to the royal couple later said that Harry did make a call to his grandmother after Meghan gave birth to Lilibet at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
“It will have likely been a call saying that she’s arrived and we’d plan to name her after you — it’s not really something one can say no to. I doubt they asked — more likely informed,” the source said.
As princess Lilibet got mired in controversy before she even caught a sense of the world, her parents took legal action against the BBC in response to the report.
Hardman clarified during the interview that the Queen did not have a problem with the choice of name, but the misleading presentation of her approval to it. “It was the fact that she was basically being asked to say she had given her blessing when it had been presented to her: ‘We’re doing this, what do you say?'” he said.
The royal couple named their now-2-year-old daughter Lilibet Diana shortly after her birth. In a statement, they shared, “Lili is named after her great-grandmother, Her Majesty The Queen, whose family nickname is Lilibet. Her middle name, Diana, was chosen to honor her beloved late grandmother, The Princess of Wales.”
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