Queen’s outrage at Harry and Meghan: ‘They took my name’

Queen Elizabeth told her aides that Harry and Meghan took ‘the only thing’ she owned when they named their daughter Lilibet, it has been claimed.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex with Archie and Lilibet in their 2021 Christmas card.

Queen Elizabeth told her aides that Harry and Meghan took “the only thing” she owned when they named their daughter Lilibet, it has been claimed.

The couple are said to have ­angered the former British monarch by christening their second child with the nickname used only by Queen Elizabeth’s closest family and friends.

Aides said the late queen had complained: “I don’t own the palaces, I don’t own the paintings, the only thing I own is my name. And now they’ve taken that,” according to the Daily Mail.

The report comes after a new book claimed she was angered by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s claim that she had approved of them using the term of endearment.

A member of staff said the queen was “as angry as I’d ever seen her” after Harry and ­Meghan said t they would not have used the name Lilibet, who was born in June 2021, if she had not been “supportive”.

The Sussexes accused the BBC of libel later that month after they cited a senior Buckingham Palace source in a report who said the queen was not asked permission about the name.

The couple then attempted to “co-opt” the palace into “propping up” their version of events but were “rebuffed”, according to writer Robert Hardman.

The book claims members of the royal household were “interested” that the whole incident had been “omitted” from Harry’s memoir, Spare, published last January.

“Those noisy threats of legal action duly evaporated and the libel actions against the BBC never materialised,” a royal source told Hardman.

A book says Queen Elizabeth was angered by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s claim that she had approved of them using Lilibet for their daughter’s name. Picture: Getty Images

The book also claims King Charles did not dine with Prince Harry on the night the queen died so he and William could have “discreet discussions” before having to “console the whole country”.

A member of his staff is quoted as saying: “You have to remember, losing a second parent is a big thing, becoming the senior generation is a big thing, and there he was, expected to console the whole country.”

The book records that the Duke of Sussex was met in Balmoral’s foyer by his aunt, the Princess Royal, who embraced him and ushered him to see his grandmother to pay his final respects.

In the book, Hardman writes: “Harry then joined the family dinner downstairs. Neither his father nor his brother was there, however.

“The King and Queen Camilla had, by now, returned to Birkhall, their home on the Balmoral estate … that evening, the couple would be joined for dinner by the new Prince of Wales, who would also stay at Birkhall.”

According to the book, Prince William felt his brother’s attacks on his wife in Spare, particularly the suggestion that male members of the royal family simply marry women who “fit the mould”, was “the lowest of the low”.

The Times