Queen Elizabeth’s final wish was to see all of her great-grandchildren, including her grandchildren Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s two children, in the months before her death in September 2022.
“The Queen had hoped that all of her great-grandchildren would come to Balmoral at some point that summer, even if the Sussexes couldn’t make it,” writes royal biographer Robert Hardman in his forthcoming biography, “Elizabeth II: Private, Public, and the Inside Story.”
“She wanted everyone in her family to have happy memories of her,” a family friend claims in the book, according to excerpts published in Monday’s Daily Mail.
Biographers include mentions of Prince Harry and Markle, who share six-year-old Prince Archie and four-year-old Princess Lilibet, but it’s worth noting that the expatriate reportedly didn’t have the best relationship with other members of the royal family at the time.
As many of you may remember, an infamous rift arose between the royal family in 2020 after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle decided to quit their royal duties and move to the United States.
The rift between Prince Harry, his brother Prince William, and their father, the current King Charles II, worsened after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made bombshell statements in a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey that Harry’s family was concerned about the color of his son Prince Archie’s skin.
Despite the debacle, the family headed to London for a final trip, and the Queen was able to meet the young princess named after the monarch in June 2022 – almost a year after the couple’s daughter was born.
Prince Harry, Markle and their two children reportedly spent time with the Queen at Windsor Castle just before Lilybet’s first birthday.
At the time, Page Six reported that the royal family celebrated her birthday with a private birthday party the following day.
In addition to Prince Harry’s children, Queen Elizabeth was also great-grandmother to 10 great-grandchildren, including Prince William and Duchess Kate’s children, Prince George (12), Princess Charlotte (10), and Prince Louis (7).
Since her death, the family has welcomed two more great-grandchildren, Princess Eugenie’s second son Ernest Brooksbank and Princess Beatrice’s second daughter Athena.
By the summer of 2022, Hardman said, the queen was said to have slowed down and started to decline.
Her exact medical condition has not been disclosed by the palace, but people close to the late monarch told biographers only that she was suffering from “a number of things,” Hardman wrote.
“Whatever the exact cause, she was well aware of her medical prognosis, which was enough motivation for her to resolve various loose ends,” the book says.
The Queen passed away on September 8, 2022, at the age of 96, after 70 years of reign. According to the death certificate, the late royal died of “old age.”
