The Queen is reportedly abandoning her longstanding “never complain, never explain” policy following Buckingham Palace’s latest row with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry over their decision to name their newborn daughter Lilibet.
Harry’s recent attacks against senior members of the Royal Family have pushed Her Majesty “over the edge,” a Palace source said, according to the Daily Mail.
The Queen has now resolved that the Palace will publicly issue statements correcting false and misleading information about the Queen and the Royal Family, according to the royal insider.
The source added that the Queen’s decision to abandon her longstanding policy of silence was informed by recent statements that allies of the Sussexes issued in defense of the couple following their row with Buckingham Palace over their decision to name their daughter Lilibet in honor of the Queen.
Sources claimed the Sussexes didn’t seek the Queen’s permission to name their daughter Lilibet
Palace sources claimed the Sussexes did not seek the Queen’s permission before they publicly announced they had named their newborn daughter Lilibet in honor of Her Majesty the Queen.
The royal insiders added that although Harry had spoken in the past about his desire to honor the Queen by naming his daughter after her, he and Meghan never formally sought the Queen’s permission to use her childhood pet name, Lilibet.
Royal expert Russell Myers claimed that sources said Harry only called the Queen to inform her about their decision shortly before they announced Lilibet’s birth.
“Sources have confirmed that Harry and Meghan did not seek formal permission from the Queen to use the nickname, but they did inform her in private prior to announcing her arrival to the world,” Myers wrote in an article published in the Mirror.
Meghan and Harry’s allies respond
The Sussexes responded through friends and allies to the allegation that they did not seek the Queen’s permission to name their daughter after her.
Meghan and Harry asked for the Queen’s permission before announcing their daughter’s birth and name, sources said.
Royal biographer Omid Scobie, a known friend and ally of the Sussexes, took to Twitter to respond to a BBC report that claimed a Palace insider said Harry did not ask for the Queen’s permission to use her name.
“A Sussex source says that the Queen was the first family Harry called after Lilibet’s birth and during that conversation, he shared the couple’s hope of naming their daughter in her honour,” Scobie’s tweet read. “Had she not been supportive, they would not have used the name.”
A royal source later explained that the Queen understood her conversation with Harry to be “a telling, not an asking.”
Buckingham Palace “briefings appear to hint that the Queen felt she was presented with the couple’s decision and asked to rubber-stamp it, rather than give permission,” the Daily Mail reported.