In their push to say they were given the queen’s blessing to name their new baby daughter, Lilibet, Harry and Meghan may have overplayed their hand.
By threatening the BBC with legal action over reports they did not ask permission, and having their friends leak information to friendly American media about their interactions with the queen, they might have forced Queen Elizabeth into a royal corner, and nobody puts Elizabeth in a corner.
Over the weekend, the monarch issued instructions to her courtiers to henceforth “correct any statements which misrepresent her private conversations or those other senior royals,” the Mail on Sunday reported. The queen made this move after she became the weekend’s Twitter star for her successful meetings with President Joe Biden and other world leaders, gathered for the G7 summit in Cornwall, England.
“The final straw” for Elizabeth II in dealing with royal-related allegations coming from her grandson and his wife in California, the Daily Beast reported, were their claims they had discussed with her about using the queen’s nickname, Lilibet, for their new daughter. The queen’s perspective is that she was never consulted about the use of her nickname, which has personal connotations, according to the BBC and other outlets. Rather, she may have felt she was presented with the name as a “fait accompli” and asked to rubber stamp it, the Daily Mail reported.
These instructions mean that the royal dictate of “never complain, never explain” about contentious royal reports has been abandoned, at least with regards to Harry and Meghan, according to Daily Beast.
This latest row between the royal establishment and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex began to heat up in the days after the couple on June 6 announced the birth of Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor in Santa Barbara.
While the queen and other senior royal family members publicly expressed their delight at the news, the couple’s fervent critics in the U.K media expressed confusion and dismay over the choice of Lilibet, a nickname given to the queen by her father, George VI, and said to only be used, after her father’s death, by her late husband, Prince Philip.
The drama grew last week, after People, citing Sussex sources, reported that the couple introduced their newborn daughter to the queen via a video call shortly after her birth. People magazine also reported that Harry and Meghan had shared the baby’s name with the queen ahead of her birth, while Page Six, also citing unnamed sources, said that “Harry called the Queen for permission to name his daughter Lilibet,” the Daily Mail said.
On Thursday, the BBC’s royal correspondent, Jonny Dymond, went on the broadcaster’s flagship radio program to report that Harry and Meghan “did not consult the queen about using her childhood nickname Lilibet for their baby.” Despite the reports suggesting that Harry had sought permission from the queen, Dymond said he was told by a palace source that the queen was “never asked.”
The BBC report aligned with a report in The Times that said that the queen had merely been “informed” about the choice of the name, rather than having had her permission explicitly sought, the Daily Beast’s royal reporter Tom Sykes said in another report.
Harry and Meghan escalated the situation by getting their lawyers involved, alleging that the BBC’s report was “false and defamatory” and threatening legal action, Sykes said.
With their threat, the couple seemed to suggest that the palace source might be some junior-level staffer, or some other aide who didn’t speak for the queen or who was misconstruing conversations with her, Sykes said.
Their couple’s favorite journalist and sympathetic biographer, Omid Scobie, put this argument forward by tweeting that the BBC report “highlights just how far removed aides within the institution (who learned of the baby news alongside the rest of the world) now are from the Sussexes’ private matters.”
Those close to Prince Harry confirm that he spoke to close family before the announcement so perhaps this report highlights just how far removed aides within the institution (who learned of the baby news alongside the rest of the world) now are from the Sussexes’ private matters.
— Omid Scobie (@scobie) June 9, 2021
Sykes said it was wrong for anyone to assume that the BBC report was unreliable gossip or that the queen’s aides don’t speak for her. The fact that the palace source gave this scoop to the BBC, U.K.’s national broadcaster, indicates that the source was in fact speaking for the queen and reflecting her true feelings.
“Dymond, as anyone who has any experience of the royal news beat would instantly recognize, was almost certainly the recipient of a carefully strategized and meticulously structured off the record briefing from palace press officers, acting directly on the orders of the queen’s private secretary,” Sykes reported.
With Harry and Meghan threatening legal action, this left “Harry and Meghan less than half a step away from accusing the queen of being a liar,” Sykes added.
Meanwhile, the BBC is standing by its report, and Dymond’s tweets remain online. The palace also refused to refute the BBC report.
Even a statement shared with Scobie, and from Harry and Meghan themselves. said Harry didn’t bring up the idea of naming their baby Lilibet until after her birth and before they made their public announcement. Harry also expressed his “hope” of naming their daughter Lilibet in the queen’s honor.
“Had she not been supportive, they would not have used the name,” the couple said, but critics of the couple have said that expressing “a hope” is not the same as asking for permission.
Royal observers have also said that the queen is often consulted about the names of royal babies, and is especially particular about the names of children in the direct line of succession, such as Prince William’s three children.
In addition, a palace insider told the Daily Mail that there was “no video” call with the queen, another claim that appears to have pushed the queen “over the edge” and decide to finally contest some of the information coming from the Sussex side.
“Friends of the Sussexes appear to have given misleading briefings to journalists about what the queen had said and that took the whole thing over the edge,” the insider said.
In general, the royal family has “sought to mollify Harry and Meghan,” even after they made damaging statements about the monarchy, alleging racism, dysfunction and indifference to Meghan’s mental health suffering in their interviews with Oprah Winfrey in March and in Harry’s Apple TV series with Winfrey.
Royal sources told the Mail that, going forward, the palace’s pushback against Harry and Meghan will continue, as and when the need arises. “This is about whether or not what is being reported is an accurate version of what actually happened,” the insider told the Daily Mail.
