Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are traveling to the U.K. this week with their two children — Archie and Lilibet — for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
As the royal family comes together to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee this week, there’s another big cause for celebration: Lilibet’s first birthday!
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are traveling to the U.K. this week with their two children — Archie and Lilibet — to take part in the special four-day weekend in honor of the Queen’s record-breaking 70 years on the throne.
The trip marks the first time Lili, who was born in California, has visited her dad’s homeland. (Archie, 3, was born in the U.K.) It will also be the first time she will meet her great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. The meeting will be especially poignant as Lili is named for the monarch, whose childhood nickname was Lilibet.
Lili will also be celebrating her own milestone when she turns 1 on Saturday. The Sussexes are likely staying at their U.K. home, Frogmore Cottage, which is just a half a mile from the Queen’s home at Windsor Castle, making a visit with the monarch very convenient. And now that the Queen is reportedly no longer attending the Epsom Derby on Saturday, she would be available for a potential birthday meet-up with Lili.
Lili’s older brother Archie had a memorable first meeting with the Queen. Just days after he was born, the couple brought their son to Windsor Castle, where he met Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The world got a glimpse of the moment in a history-making photo that also included Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland. The occasion marks the first time in royal history that a British monarch has been pictured alongside a royal baby’s Black grandmother.
News that Meghan, 40, and Prince Harry, 37, would travel to the U.K. for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations came shortly after Queen Elizabeth, 96, announced that only working members of the royal family will appear for the traditional Buckingham Palace balcony appearance as part of Trooping the Colour, the monarch’s annual public birthday celebration on Thursday.
The change means Meghan and Harry, who stepped back as senior members of the royal family in 2020, will not appear on the balcony. However, the couple is expected to attend the service of thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral on Friday.
Harry and Meghan stopped in the U.K. for a visit with the monarch at Windsor Castle in April as the couple made their way to the Netherlands for the Invictus Games.
“It was great, it was really nice to see her. To see her in an element of privacy was nice,” Harry told Today.
The Archewell founder also noted that although his family is not based in England, he continues to check up on the Queen.
“I’m just making sure that she’s, you know, protected and got the right people around her,” he explained of the Queen, who had tested positive for COVID-19 in February. “You know, home — home for me, now, is you know, for the time being, is in the States.”
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