What’s in a name? An awful lot, as any sensible person knows. And it turns out that recollections have varied once again when it came to the delicate matter of the Sussexes calling their daughter by the late Queen’s pet name, Lilibet.
The revelation is in Robert Hardman’s new biography of the King – Charles III, New King, New Court – where he quotes one royal adviser saying that the Queen was said to be angrier than anyone had ever seen her when the couple maintained that they had her permission to call their daughter by the name by which she was privately known by her parents, her sister and occasionally, the Duke of Edinburgh. What seems to have been the case is that they did call her to tell her that they’d chosen to call the baby after her, but not in the obvious way by calling her Elizabeth – which Meghan probably feels is terrifically old fashioned – but by this private pet name. And crucially, the way the couple – no doubt, Harry – put it wasn’t to ask her permission formally; which meant she felt she couldn’t say no.
