{"id":188380,"date":"2026-04-07T15:34:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188380\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:34:31","slug":"queen-elizabeths-1-final-request-for-12-great-grandchildren-before-she-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188380\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth’s 1 final request for 12 great-grandchildren before she died"},"content":{"rendered":"

Queen Elizabeth<\/a> II made a thoughtful gesture towards her great-grandchildren in her final weeks, a royal author has claimed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The late monarch passed away at Balmoral Castle aged 96 in September 2022, plunging the world into mourning in honour of her 70-year reign. Now, ahead of the centenary of her birth later this month, royal biographer Robert Hardman has offered a new insight into how she spent her final weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Queen Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story, the author claims that the Queen hoped to invite her great-grandchildren to her beloved residence in Scotland in the summer before she died, to leave them all with a “really happy memory”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robert Hardman writes, in a passage serialised in the Daily Mail<\/a>: “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. ‘She wanted to make sure that they all had a really happy memory of her,’ explained a friend of the family.”<\/p>\n

Highlights from the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee<\/p>\n

Who were the Queen’s 12 great-grandchildren?<\/p>\n

The invitation included Prince William and Kate’s children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, Harry and Meghan’s children, were also invited, despite their parents stepping down as senior royals in 2020.<\/p>\n

\"Queen\u00a9 GettyQueen Elizabeth II made history when she celebrated her Platinum Jubilee in 2022<\/p>\n

Her other great-grandchildren are Savannah Phillips and Isla Phillips, the children of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly; Zara and Mike Tindall’s children, Mia, Lena and Lucas; and Sienna (Princess Beatrice’s daughter) and August (Princess Eugenie’s son). Princess Beatrice’s daughter, Athena, and Princess Eugenie’s second son, Ernest, were born after the Queen’s death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Queen and the late Duke of Edinburgh also had eight grandchildren: Peter and Zara Phillips; Prince William and Prince Harry; Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie; and Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn.<\/p>\n

A final visit to the Queen<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2022, the Wales family arrived in Scotland to spend the last weeks of the school holidays in Balmoral. Charlotte and Louis joined their mother, Kate, on a commercial flight to Scotland at the end of August. It was reported at the time that William had travelled separately with the couple’s oldest son, Prince George.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Harry\u00a9 Chris Jackson\/Getty ImagesThe Sussex family did not go to Balmoral<\/p>\n

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle had brought their children, Archie and Lilibet, over to the UK in June 2022. However, they are not believed to have visited Balmoral.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his recent book, Betrayal, author Tom Bower writes that Meghan had “refused” the invitations; however, a spokesperson for the Sussexes said that the claims in the book were filled with “conspiracy and melodrama”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How the Queen spent her final weeks<\/p>\n

In her final months, Queen Elizabeth missed several important events in the royal calendar, including a service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral for her Platinum Jubilee celebrations. She also missed the Epsom Derby and her Jubilee concert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"queen\u00a9 Photo: Getty ImagesQueen Elizabeth met Liz Truss before she died<\/p>\n

Despite this, she completed a final series of summer engagements at Windsor, visiting her beloved fell pony, Emma, and holding a privy council meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even after retreating to Balmoral, and just two days before her death, she greeted incoming Conservative Party Prime Minister Liz Truss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One official noted, according to Robert Hardman, “She was so brave. You could tell she was having a lot of treatment from the bruising on her hands where the cannula had gone in. Her hands seemed permanently bruised.”<\/p>\n

The Queen’s private secretary, Sir Edward Young, recorded a handwritten note of her final moments, writing: “Dougie [Glass] in at 3.25. Very peaceful. In her sleep. Slipped away. Old age. Death has to be registered in Scotland. Agree 3.10pm. She wouldn’t have been aware of anything. No pain.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Queen Elizabeth II made a thoughtful gesture towards her great-grandchildren in her final weeks, a royal author has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,20092,2811,75426,75427,122,124,123,31141,1431,1245],"class_list":{"0":"post-188380","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-prince-george","12":"tag-prince-harry-and-meghan","13":"tag-prince-louis","14":"tag-princess-charlotte","15":"tag-queens","16":"tag-queens-headlines","17":"tag-queens-news","18":"tag-royal-children","19":"tag-royalty","20":"tag-the-queen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}