Today, in sunny California, a very special little girl will celebrate her third birthday.
Lilibet is a British princess, but she grows up thousands of miles away from her royal relatives due to years of family conflict.
Any problems will no doubt be put to rest today when her parents, Prince Harry and Meghan, shower her with affection at their £11.4 million ($14.5 million) mansion in Montecito.
But there is one thing about the adorable young woman that will likely raise claims and counterclaims for many years to come, through no fault of her own: her name.
For Lilibet, the childhood name by which those closest to her knew the late Queen was an unusual and deeply personal choice.
Lilibet is a British princess, but she grows up thousands of miles away from her royal relatives due to years of family conflict.
According to Robert Hardman’s recent biography of Charles III, the late queen had rarely been as angry as when Harry and Meghan claimed they had her approval when they named their daughter.
The Mail’s royal editor, Rebecca English, previously reported that the Queen was so upset by the Sussexes’ decision that she told aides: “I don’t own the palaces, I don’t own the paintings, the only thing I own is my name”. And now they’ve taken that away.
It was without a doubt No the reaction that Harry and Meghan intended.
But, after her duty as monarch, family was the most important thing to Queen Elizabeth.
And this was symbolized in her childhood nickname, Lilibet, a beautiful reminder of her happiest moments.
According to Robert Hardman’s recent biography of Charles III, the late queen had rarely been as angry as when Harry and Meghan tried to claim they had her approval when they named their daughter.
Used only by closest friends and immediate family, it was a diminutive that took the Queen back to her early days at 145 Piccadilly.
It was a time before windy Buckingham Palace, when her father was nothing more than the shy Duke of York and when, along with her mother and her little sister Margaret Rose, they were a happy family looking to the future.
It was just “the four of us”, as their father, George VI, would later call them.
Writing to her daughter after her marriage to Philip, she told her that young Lilibet should “remember that her old home is still hers…return to it as often and as often as possible.”
He continued: ‘Our family, the four of us, the “Royal Family”, must stick together – with additions, of course, at appropriate times!!’
By then, the abdication of his uncle, Edward VIII, had changed everything, forcing his father to step into the monarch’s shoes at great personal cost.
Things changed again with the war, which created a new world where public displays of duty by the Royal Family took on monumental importance. The King wore uniform from start to finish.
And the situation was irrevocably transformed when his father died on February 6, 1952, aged only 56, a death perhaps hastened by the pressures and responsibilities of an unexpected reign.
The late Queen routinely extended her Christmas visits to Sandringham to this date, an act of remembrance that spoke volumes about Elizabeth’s love for her father and grief at his loss.
Perhaps for her too it was a remnant of her days as the giggly little princess who cajoled irascible grandfather King George V into playing horses on the ground, allowing him to pull her beard.
Prince Harry wrote in his memoirs that he had his own special relationship with the Queen, which he likely intended to honor through his daughter.
Today, there will be none of that tension in sight as Lilibet passes another milestone with her five-year-old brother, Prince Archie, and her parents.
But in doing so, the name has transformed from a symbol of family unity to one marked by transatlantic anger.
Today, there will be none of that tension in sight as Lilibet passes another milestone with her five-year-old brother, Prince Archie, and her parents.
However, there is no indication that Lilibet will be meeting any members of her father’s family anytime soon.
King Charles had only had one “very emotional” meeting with his youngest grandson: during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022.
But Lilibet is not believed to have met her uncles, Prince William and the Princess of Wales, or her children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, her cousins.
And there is absolutely no sign that the deep rift between Harry and his brother, William, will heal to the point of a family reunion any time soon.
