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  • 2 years ago
Author Robert Hardman Clears Up Queen Elizabeth II's Issues With Lilibet's Name

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00:00 You write in the book how Queen Elizabeth was a little angry
00:04 when she found out that Harry and Meghan
00:06 named their daughter Lilibet.
00:08 At the time of her death, what was her relationship like
00:10 with Harry and Meghan?
00:12 Well, actually, on that point, and I think there has been
00:15 a lot of attention given to that part of the book,
00:19 which I understand, but what I was writing about there,
00:23 the root of the issue was not the Queen naming--
00:26 sorry, Harry and Meghan naming their daughter Lilibet.
00:30 It was what happened afterwards.
00:31 It was when they said that this had all been done
00:33 with her blessing, and then the BBC reported very factually
00:38 that the Queen hadn't actually been asked for her blessing,
00:41 at which point Harry and Meghan then resorted to lawyers
00:45 and started firing off legal letters saying,
00:47 "If anybody says this, we're gonna come after you,"
00:50 at which point they then tried to enlist the palace
00:54 to support their version of events,
00:57 and the palace didn't.
01:00 And, you know, it was creating this sort of ferrari
01:05 where one didn't need to exist,
01:06 and then trying to get the Queen to endorse
01:11 a version of events that, shall we say,
01:15 recollections might have varied, to coin her phrase.
01:19 That was the nub of her anger on that point.
01:23 But she was-- or she adored Harry.
01:26 She always did. She always thought of Harry as--
01:28 She had great sympathy for number two child, generally.
01:34 She'd watched how her sister, Margaret,
01:38 you know, how difficult it was for her being a second child.
01:42 Her own father was a number two child.
01:44 I mean, he only inherited the throne
01:46 because his older brother abdicated.
01:49 It accounts, I think, for a lot of her indulgence
01:52 of Prince Andrew's second child.
01:53 And she's more than conscious, she was,
01:57 of that-- of the fact that the eldest gets everything,
02:01 and that life isn't entirely clear
02:05 and fully mapped out for those who kind of come behind.
02:09 So there was a sympathy.
02:11 I think she had huge regard for all that Harry did
02:14 in the armed forces.
02:16 She was immensely impressed by the Invictus Games
02:18 and all his work with wounded servicemen and women,
02:22 which remains an extraordinary achievement.
02:26 So on all those fronts, she had a great love for him.
02:32 And also, I mean, everyone in the family,
02:33 Harry was the sort of-- he was the cheeky one.
02:35 You know, you've got to have a sort of serious,
02:38 dutiful number one in line,
02:40 and then you can have a sort of slightly irreverent--
02:46 I mean, you look at some of those videos,
02:48 the video he did with the Queen for his Invictus Games,
02:51 those sort of things, I think only Harry could have
02:53 got away with that, got her to do it.
02:55 And, no, I mean, there was a great bond.
02:57 She adored all her grandchildren,
02:59 and all her great-grandchildren are the same.
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