June 4, 2022, was a special day for the Sussex family as it was the first birthday of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s daughter Lilibet. The 12th great-grandchild of the late Queen Elizabeth was born on June 4, 2021, in Santa Monica, California. Before June 2022, Elizabeth had not met her youngest great-grandchild and had actually only seen Lilibet through virtual means of communication. However, luckily before her passing on Sept. 8, 2022, that changed at her Platinum Jubilee as Harry and Meghan were in attendance to celebrate Elizabeth’s incredible milestone.
Harry and Meghan had traveled to the UK for the first time since moving to the US in 2020 to celebrate the late queen’s jubilee, which was a four-day holiday weekend to mark Elizabeth’s incredible 70-year-reign. The couple’s first public appearance at a royal event in more than two years happened on June 3, 2022, when they attended a thanksgiving service for the queen which took place at the prestigious St. Paul’s Cathedral.
However, the Sussexes were not invited to join the queen and the rest of the royal family on the Buckingham Palace balcony for her iconic Trooping the Colour parade. But Washington Post reported that photographers caught a glimpse of Meghan playing with some of Elizabeth’s great-grandchildren in a window of Buckingham Palace while the parade took place.
While Harry and Meghan have faced a lot of criticism for their decision to leave their duties as royals to opt for a quieter life in the US, their attendance at the queen’s jubilee was appreciated, especially since it was her last big celebration before her death. More importantly, it gave Lilibet and her brother Archie a beautiful celebration of their great-grandmother. As the daughter of the royal couple just turned 1, the world is celebrating her growing up right before our eyes.
