Meghan Markle and Harry confirmed to attend Queen's Jubilee

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It was announced on Friday that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will attend the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June, bringing 11-month-old Lilibet to the UK for the first time. The youngest Sussex family member will celebrate her first birthday just after the extended Jubilee weekend.

A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess said the couple was “excited and honoured” to bring the family across the Atlantic for the festivities.

But Ian Lloyd, author of the newly-published ‘The Queen: 70 Chapters in the life of Elizabeth II’, said that although the Queen will be thrilled to meet her great-granddaughter, the monarch has always preferred spending time with her descendants once they are a little older.

He made the caveat that “clearly, like every other grandmother or great grandmother, she would want to see them”, but the Queen most prefers to speak with young family members “once they have a personality”.

He told Express.co.uk: “She likes the children, I think, when they’ve got an identity.”

He added: “She got on very well with her grandchildren when they were four or five.

“I think she found that more of a good time.”

The Queen will have a “very pragmatic” attitude to meeting her distant great-granddaughter, Mr Lloyd claimed.

The Queen was introduced to Lilibet, who is named after the monarch, back in June 2019.

Mr Lloyd continued: “She can see them on video links, but she’s never been a person particularly enamoured with babies.”

He added that the Queen “knows what it’s like having children”, and would not have pressed for the Sussexes to bring their toddler in tow for the Jubilee “just to see her”.

He said: “Her attitude at the moment will be ‘don’t disrupt’ Lili.”

Unlike her elder brother, Archie, Lilibet has never touched down on UK soil.

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But Archie, who celebrated his third birthday on Friday, spent a brief period with the Royal Family in the UK before the Sussexes relocated to the US.

But as fears for the Queen’s health grow, it would be something the Duke and Duchess of Sussex would “regret” to continue missing opportunities to unite the monarch with her namesake.

Speaking of whether the Queen would regret never meeting Lilibet, Mr Lloyd said: “I don’t think it would weigh heavily on her particularly.

“But I think it might on them, because when you got older, you have regrets when you look back.”

He then posed the possibility of Lilibet and Archie themselves, as older children or adults, questioning their parents about such a decision.

Mr Lloyd said the “regret would be for the Sussexes” if Lilibet and Archie asked the Duke and Duchess: “Why weren’t we ever taken to see her, to see the Queen?”

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