Queen Elizabeth II made a special gesture to her great-grandchildren, including George, Charlotte, and Louis, during the months before her death in September 2022.
The late Queen spent most of her final months at Balmoral, where she often preferred to stay.
With the platinum jubilee engagements exhausting her, she left London for her usual summer holiday in Scotland, but insisted on a visit from her great-grandchildren.
Robert Hardman’s Queen Elizabeth II biography, serialised in the Daily Mail, details that “she 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.”
A family friend fondly explained: “She wanted to make sure that they all had a really happy memory of her.”
The biography details how she was “well aware of her medical prognosis,” which had encouraged her to “tie up various loose ends”.
In August 2022, just three weeks before their great-grandmother’s death, Prince Louis, seven, and Princess Charlotte, 10, made the journey to Scotland on a commercial flight, along with their mother, Catherine, Princess of Wales.
Prince William, along with Prince George, 12, travelled separately to Balmoral.
Queen Elizabeth II gave a special gesture to her great-grandchildren, George, Charlotte, and Louis, during the months before her death in September 2022
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Royal protocol often prevents members of the Royal Family from flying together.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle travelled to the UK in September 2022. However, neither Prince Archie nor Princess Lilibet made the trip.
King Charles last met Archie and Lilibet alongside his mother at the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in February 2022, more than four years ago.
He has seen his son, Prince Harry, just once in the last two years.
Prince Harry and King Charles previously met in February |
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The estranged father and son met for “a private tea” at Clarence House in September, their first meeting since February 2024, just days after Buckingham Palace announced that the monarch was undergoing cancer treatment.
Archie and Lilibet would have been three and one respectively when Charles last met them.
It was the young princess’s first birthday on the late Queen’s first meeting with Lilibet, who was named in homage to the monarch’s childhood nickname.
Queen Elizabeth II met Prince Archie (pictured) at least twice, but only saw Princess Lilibet once, on her first birthday
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Harry reflected on the first moment his grandmother met his second-born in his memoir “Spare”: “Archie making his deep bows, his baby sister Lilibet cuddling the monarch’s shins.
“Sweetest children, Granny said, sounding bemused. She’d expected them to be a bit more … American, I think? Meaning in her mind, more rambunctious.”
Neither Lilibet nor Archie have returned to the UK since.