In July 2022, Queen Elizabeth II headed to Scotland for her annual summer retreat at Balmoral. It would be her final visit to Scotland, and that September, she passed away peacefully in her room in the Balmoral castle. QEII knew she was in poor health and everyone else knew it too. That July, reports circulated that she wanted the whole family to visit Balmoral one last time that summer, and the Sun even reported that QEII wanted to see Prince Harry, Meghan and their children. Months after she passed away, Prince William and Kate’s office published a photo from the summer of ‘22, allegedly taken by Kate. It showed QEII surrounded by her great-grandchildren (and two grandchildren), as you can see above. A sidenote about that photo: in 2024, photo agencies cited the photo as yet another example of Kate manipulating photos and handing them out to the press without acknowledging the editing. But I digress. According to Robert Hardman’s new biography of QEII, she… asked all of her great-grandkids to come to Balmoral that summer.
Queen Elizabeth wanted to ensure that her great-grandchildren would have happy memories of her during what proved to be her final summer, royal biographer Robert Hardman claims in a new book.
In an excerpt of Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story, out April 9, Hardman writes that the Queen wanted to see her great-grandchildren at Balmoral Castle in Scotland when she headed there for her traditional respite in the summer of 2022.
“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,” Hardman writes, according to an excerpt published by the Daily Mail on April 6, referring to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and their children, Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back from their royal roles in the U.K. in 2020 and moved to California, but they brought their children to the U.K. in June 2022 for the celebrations commemorating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
“‘She wanted to make sure that they all had a really happy memory of her,’ explained a friend of the family,’ ” he wrote.
Something I find interesting is that it’s been nearly four f–king years and they still can’t say “of course QEII invited the Sussexes to come over that summer.” Harry and Meghan had just brought the kids to England that June, and you know why? Because QEII personally invited them and guaranteed their safety. Harry got to introduce Lili to her great-grandmother in June – but did QEII make a point of inviting the Sussexes to come back just a short time afterwards? The Sussexes arrived back in England in late August as well, and Harry wrote in Spare that he spoke on the phone to his grandmother when he arrived in the UK. I guess my point is… yes, we get it, QEII wanted family around her that summer, but no one is willing to say that she actually invited the Sussexes. In fact, everyone around QEII insists that she f–king hated Harry and Meghan and she didn’t want to be alone with them! So which is it – a guilt trip over Harry & Meghan denying QEII’s final wish for a Balmoral visit, or an acknowledgement that she never really invited them because she didn’t want to see them?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Kensington Palace.
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- Not Available For Publication In The UK – London, UK -20220605- The Platinum Jubilee Celebrations Final Day -PICTURED: Catherine Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Louis -PHOTO by: John Rainford/Cover Images/INSTARimages.com -51634964.jpg This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded
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- Not Available For Publication In The UK – London, UK -20220605- The Platinum Jubilee Celebrations Final Day -PICTURED: Catherine Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Louis -PHOTO by: John Rainford/Cover Images/INSTARimages.com -51634967.jpg This is an editorial, rights-managed image. Please contact Instar Images LLC for licensing fee and rights information at sales@instarimages.com or call +1 212 414 0207 This image may not be published in any way that is, or might be deemed to be, defamatory, libelous, pornographic, or obscene. Please consult our sales department for any clarification needed prior to publication and use. Instar Images LLC reserves the right to pursue unauthorized users of this material. If you are in violation of our intellectual property rights or copyright you may be liable for damages, loss of income, any profits you derive from the unauthorized use of this material and, where appropriate, the cost of collection and/or any statutory damages awarded
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- Queen Elizabeth II during an audience with President of Switzerland Ignazio Cassis at Windsor Castle. Picture date: Thursday April 28, 2022.,Image: 686853114, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II, Catherine Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the fly past after Trooping The Colour – The Queen’s Birthday Parade, London, UK – 02 Jun 2022,Image: 696416604, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Copyright Paul Grover, Model Release: no, Credit line: Paul Grover / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Louis on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the fly past after Trooping The Colour – The Queen’s Birthday Parade, London, UK – 02 Jun 2022,Image: 696416836, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Copyright Paul Grover, Model Release: no, Credit line: Paul Grover / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the fly past after Trooping The Colour – The Queen’s Birthday Parade, London, UK – 02 Jun 2022,Image: 696417262, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: -, Model Release: no, Credit line: Ian Vogler / Avalon
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- Queen Elizabeth II waits in the Drawing Room before receiving Liz Truss for an audience at Balmoral, Scotland, where she invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative party to become Prime Minister and form a new government.,Image: 719993378, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Jane Barlow / Avalon
Uhu, no she didn’t. Look at her eyes in the picture with her greatGK. She doesn’t look all there..
They should really stop with these stories. It’s very tiring.
Yeah. And a visit to this very ill, very old woman would not have left the kids with happy memories. They’d’ve experienced worry more than anything else.
I suspect the late Queen was all there, in fact, more so than anyone else in her family, because neither her head nor heart were warped by petty obsessions and bad habits. She was strict, sensible, and selfless, but she wasn’t a nun. She was lively, occasionally subversive, bumptious, and companionable. She was very practical and straightforward. Basically, all the great qualities you could hope to find in a whole family, were concentrated into its one most prominent member. I don’t think I’m exaggerating. She was also highly animated and as one person observed, “When she laughs, she laughs with her whole face.”
Yeahhhh I think your praise of her might be a little overblown, lol. She was weak, easily manipulated, emotionally cold when she wanted to be, and a very hands off mother whose children all grew up to be enormously entitled.
Yeah I have to agree with Becks1 here. She coddled her sex-offending youngest son and buried her head in the sand about the family’s real problems.
How many articles were there for the Jubilee insisting the Sussexes were prohibited to take any photo of their children with the queen? After she passed away oh look a photo with all her white great grand children….
As I recall, the rota were openly gleeful that Archie and Lili were absent from that photo. This was a statement from the British establishment that the Royal Family is committed to white supremacy, no matter who is born into the royal family.
It continues to amaze and dumbfound me that the British and Australian media are so openly racist and hostile in their abuse. The harassment and vilification of the Sussexes will provide decades of analysis from scholars, psychologists, and historians. The Windsors and their sycophants will be denounced for their racism and abuse. History won’t be kind.
I would bet that the Sussex’s have photos from the Jubilee visit that they are keeping private. Waity photoshopping all the white grandkids into one photo screamed she was the one who was worried about skin color, her actions are loud.
I wonder if H&M and QEII spoke and decided it was too much to have another long overseas trip so soon again for such young children.
Lili was a baby, Archie was 3? do I have that right? Neither were old enough to likely remember visiting with their great grandmother, and they were young enough to make such a long trip an ordeal.
And that’s not to even mention the still outstanding risk of Covid that fall, with a new easily transmitted variant, especially risky for elderly, immuno-compromised patients such as cancer patients.
The tabloids and the Windsors always want to make everything about family drama and one upsmanship. Sometimes people actually make practical, kindly decisions based on what is best for everyone.
I think that there might have been talks with her about another visit but as I mentioned below, Harry’s court case revealed that they requested security through RAVEC between the Jubilee and the Queen’s death and they were denied security so they couldn’t return to the UK with them prior to her death. I think she wasn’t in control of what was happening anymore and so the decisions at that point were being made by Charles, William, royal staff and RAVEC.
I was coming to say this. Harry DID request security to bring the children back to the UK and RAVEC denied them this – presumably so the royals could say how heartless H+M were for denying the queen a sight of them before she died – which the rats DID say.
In any event, I am unconvinced that all of the children in that photo were actually present when it was taken.
And I agree that the queen was both heavily sedated and heavily manipulated by those around her in the last years before she died, and people did and claimed many things in her name, much as they are doing now, given that she is regularly speaking from beyond the grave.
Did Meghan ever get to see Balmoral? Wondering about how odd Harry never seem to go there. However, in Spare, Harry indicated that his grandparents saw Lili and Archie through FaceTime or Zoom, just never in person after the jubilee visit. It would seem that that was their “Balmoral” visit.
I think its been said that Harry doesnt like Balmoral because he associates it with his mother’s death. I dont think he said that in Spare but it makes sense to me.
Balmoral is where William and Harry were when Diana died. But Harry wrote about Balmoral fondly in his book so I think both he and William like going up there. I don’t know about Harry visiting Balmoral as an adult but Kate and William have definitely been up there with the kids during the summer. But overall I think they prefer Norfolk/Anmer Hall for their vacations.
I don’t think Meghan ever had the chance to go up to Balmoral. She got married spring 2018 Archie was born spring 2019. And then the Sussexed peaced out January 2020.
W&k aren’t spending time at balmoral or anywhere in scotland
W&k do a flyby wave at paps outside balmoral, and fly off to a foreign destination the next day. It has been clocked at 24 hours or less in Scotland total.
They’ve used Scottish airports to sneak out of the country for their holidays for years.
Balmoral is where William and Harry were when Diana died. But Harry wrote about Balmoral fondly in his book so I think both he and William like going up there. I don’t know about Harry visiting Balmoral as an adult but Kate and William have definitely been up there with the kids during the summer. But overall I think they prefer Norfolk/Anmer Hall for their vacations.
I don’t think Meghan ever had the chance to go up to Balmoral. She got married spring 2018 Archie was born spring 2019. And then the Sussexes stepped down in January 2020.
It could very well be that the visit with Harry and Meghan and their children is what inspired her to have the others come to visit that summer.
I seem to remember that Kitty photoshopped the kids in….?
But she notably didn’t photoshop in the children of mixed race.
All these stories about QEII .
Do they reach her with an ouja board?
It’s exhausting!
Well, there’s no way of knowing so whatever. They”ll just change the narrative as it suits them for the rest of time. While the rest of us roll our eyes.
Best comment here.
One of my favorite parts of ‘Spare’ is when Harry writes about Lili hugging her great grandmother’s legs. Makes me glad knowing that only the Sussexes have a true picture of that, even if it’s only in their minds.
Harry and Meghan’s court cases always give us lots of details that are unfortunately ignored because they would make the lies the media tell more obvious. Through Harry’s security case we found out that the Queen did in fact write a statement to the courts requesting that the Sussexes retain security while in the UK. We also learned that Harry and Meghan had requested to bring the children back to the UK following the Jubilee visit and prior to the Queen’s death and they were denied security by RAVEC, so they weren’t allowed to bring them back to the UK, when the Queen would have wanted them to visit her one last time before her death. I believe that the outpouring of support they received during the Jubilee after all the media and royals tried to do to prevent it, is why they made sure they couldn’t visit again the summer before the Queen’s passing. That’s why prior to her passing there was lots of them moving her around to avoid the Sussexes making any surprise visits with her. As Meghan said in their documentary, they weren’t keeping Harry from seeing the Queen, they were keeping a grandson from seeing his grandmother and the same goes for Meghan and their children. All of this is on Charles, William, royal staff, RAVEC and the media.
The winners, survivors, or compromised rewrite history after the fact. It’s always been that way.
We have more receipts and evidence now, though.
The Queen was supposedly angry that Harry and Meghan named their daughter Lilibet and she didn’t like Meghan but she invited them to the Platinum Jubilee and she wanted Archie and Lili to come to Balmoral. I would think if she hated Lili’s name and Meghan so much she wouldn’t be inviting them over. As others have mentioned it came out in court that Harry did want to bring the children to Balmoral that summer but RAVEC refused to provide security so they didn’t go.
The York granddaughter’s children aren’t in the photo, so it wasn’t just Harry’s kids who weren’t included.
But next to the Sussexes, where are the Yorks? Some of there baby’s were born there too. At least Eugenie oldest.