Meghan Markle and Prince Harry faced a challenging decision when it came to sharing the news of their daughter Lilibet’s christening.
Their second child, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor, was born in California on June 4, 2021. Nearly two years later, in March 2023, she was christened at the couple’s home in Montecito. Harry and Meghan decided to announce the christening on International Women’s Day, March 8. However, royal fans quickly noticed that this date also held significant meaning for the royal family.
The announcement was made exactly six months after the passing of Lilibet’s namesake, Queen Elizabeth II, who died peacefully at Balmoral on September 8, 2022, at the age of 96. This wasn’t the first time Harry and Meghan chose a symbolic date for an important announcement. In 2021, they revealed Meghan’s pregnancy with Lilibet on Valentine’s Day, the same day Princess Diana had announced her pregnancy with Prince Harry.
In the final episode of his Netflix docuseries, Harry shared that he only learned of the Valentine’s Day connection after the fact. He recalled receiving messages with clippings from the front page of a newspaper where Diana had announced she was expecting Harry on February 14, 1984. “I was shocked. We had no idea. It was just a coincidence, or maybe not a coincidence,” Harry remarked.
In his memoir Spare, Harry also noted a link between his mother and the start of his relationship with Meghan. He reflected on how they began messaging on a social media app and eventually started texting late into the night. The Duke of Sussex observed, “It occurred to me how uncanny, how surreal, how bizarre, that this marathon conversation should have begun on July 1, 2016. My mother’s fifty-fifth birthday.”
Harry has frequently drawn parallels between Meghan and Princess Diana. However, he was reportedly “disappointed” when his family did not see the similarities. According to royal author Tom Bower in his book Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors, Harry introduced Meghan to Diana’s sisters, Jane and Sarah, as well as her best friend, Julia Samuel. He hoped they would recognise the common struggles between Diana and Meghan. But as Bower noted, “He was disappointed. No one agreed that his vulnerable mother had anything in common with his girlfriend. More discomforting for him, they thought Meghan would not fit in with the Royal Family.”
Bower added that this unease was shared by Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, who, at William’s request, advised Harry to reconsider rushing into marriage. This advice, according to Bower, “provoked a bitter reaction” from Harry. Reflecting on the situation, Harry later said, “This was going to be really hard.”
