Queen Elizabeth Was 'Thrilled' to Meet Princess Lilibet, Who Crawled Around Her Feet During Their Only Meeting, Book Claims
Queen Elizabeth Was 'Thrilled' to Meet Princess Lilibet, Who Crawled Around Her Feet During Their Only Meeting, Book Claims
Meredith KileThu, April 9, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC
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Princess Lilibet; Queen ElizabethCredit: Misan Harriman; Dominic Lipinski - WPA Pool/Getty -
The late Queen Elizabeth met her namesake great-grandchild Princess Lilibet just once before she died
After stepping back from royal life, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle brought their children to the U.K. to celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee
"The Queen would finally get to meet Lilibet and was thrilled, say friends, as the one-year-old crawled around her feet," royal biographer Robert Hardman writes in his new book, 'Elizabeth II'
The late Queen Elizabeth met her namesake great-grandchild Princess Lilibet just once before she died.
In his new biography of the late monarch, Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. Her Story, Robert Hardman looks back on one of the last times that the royal family came together to celebrate the life and legacy of the matriarch. In June 2022, a series of events marked the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, her 70th year on the throne.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who had stepped back from royal life and moved to California two years prior, returned to the U.K. for the festivities and brought their children: Princess Lilibet, now 4, and her older brother, Prince Archie, now 6.
"The Queen would finally get to meet Lilibet and was thrilled, say friends, as the 1-year-old crawled around her feet," Hardman writes in Elizabeth II, out May 19.
Queen Elizabeth attends the Trooping the Colour parade on June 2, 2022Credit: Jonathan Brady - WPA Pool/Getty Images
Prince Harry, now 41, also recounted the scene in his 2023 memoir, Spare, recalling how he looked back on the memory in the days following his grandmother's death.
"I also couldn’t stop picturing [the children] with Granny. The final visit. Archie making deep, chivalrous bows, his baby sister Lilibet cuddling the monarch’s shins," he wrote.
"Sweetest children, Granny said, sounding bemused. She’d expected them to be a bit more…American, I think? Meaning, in her mind, more rambunctious," he added.
It marked the only time that Queen Elizabeth met Princess Lilibet before her death on Sept. 8, 2022, at age 96.
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In his book, the Duke of Sussex also looked back fondly on his own playful moments with the late monarch, when she seemed more like "Granny" than Queen.
"Stationed beside her on the balcony, saying something that caught her off guard and made her, despite the solemnity of the occasion, laugh out loud," he recalled. "Making a silly video for the first Invictus Games, discovering that she was a natural comedienne."
"People around the world howled, and said they’d never suspected she possessed such a wicked sense of humor—but she did, she always did! That was one of our little secrets," he added. "In fact, in every photo of us, whenever we’re exchanging a glance, making solid eye contact, it’s clear: We had secrets."
Queen Elizabeth and Prince Harry attend the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor and Thomas Kingston at St George's Chapel on May 18, 2019Credit: STEVE PARSONS/POOL/AFP via Getty
In his book, Hardman also writes about a final wish for her great-grandchildren that she shared in her final months: for them to join her at Balmoral Castle in Scotland one last time.
"The Queen wanted all the great-grandchildren to come up to Balmoral at some point over that summer, even if the Sussexes might not be able to make it," Hardman writes, according to an excerpt published by the Daily Mail.
" 'She wanted to make sure that they all had a really happy memory of her,' explained a friend of the family," he wrote.
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Prior to her death, Queen Elizabeth was a great-grandmother to 12 great-grandchildren, including Prince William and Kate Middleton's kids, Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, 7. (Since then, two more great-grandchildren have been born: Princess Eugenie's second son, Ernest, and Princess Beatrice's second daughter, Athena.)
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