The Duchess of Sussex has posted intimate family photos of her daughter Princess Lilibet to mark her fourth birthday.
Meghan shared a black-and-white snap of herself cuddling Lili, who was sat on her lap, with the pair both sporting windswept hair, seemingly on a boat.
The second image showed Meghan tenderly cradling newborn Lili as she enjoyed skin-to-skin time with the new addition to her family in 2021.
Meghan wrote: “Happy birthday to our beautiful girl! Four years ago today she came into our lives – and each day is brighter and better because of it.
“Thanks to all of those sending love and celebrating her special day!”
The duchess usually only shares photos of her daughter pictured from behind to protect her privacy, but in the more recent photo, Lili’s eyes and the top half of her face could be seen, with her nose and mouth and the rest of her face covered by Meghan’s arms as she hugged the princess.
Lili – the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s youngest child – was born on June 4 2021 and was named Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
She only became entitled to be a princess when her grandfather the King acceded to the throne, because of rules set out by King George V in 1917.
Harry and Meghan started using prince and princess for Archie and Lili after the princess’s christening in 2023, following correspondence with Charles about the matter.
On Tuesday, Meghan expressed her dream of launching a future business with Lili as she chatted to Beyonce’s mother Tina Knowles on her podcast.
“I wonder if one day I’ll be in business with Lili and we’ll be building something,” the duchess said, with Knowles adding: “That’s the best.”
Last week, the duchess shared a clip of her and her daughter beekeeping in matching protective suits, writing: “Harvesting honey with my little honey. (Like mother, like daughter; she’s even wearing my gloves).”
Lilibet is named after her great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II.
Princess Elizabeth had difficultly pronouncing her own name as a toddler and her grandfather George V would affectionately call her Lilibet, imitating her own attempts to say Elizabeth.
The sweet nickname stuck and she became known as Lilibet to her family from then on.
But the late Queen was reportedly “as angry as I’d ever seen her” after Harry and Meghan claimed they had her blessing to use the name for their daughter Lilibet, a royal aide said.
Royal author Robert Hardman, in his biography of the King, told how a member of staff recounted Elizabeth II’s fury following Harry and Meghan’s announcement in 2021 over the use of her childhood family nickname.
The BBC later reported a Palace source said the Queen was not asked by the Sussexes whether they could use Lilibet.
But the Sussexes’ lawyers fired off legal letters to the broadcaster and other publishers, saying the claim was false and defamatory.
A spokesperson for Harry and Meghan insisted at the time that the duke spoke to his grandmother in advance and would not have used the name had the monarch not been supportive.
Hardman wrote however: “One privately recalled that Elizabeth II had been ‘as angry as I’d ever seen her’ in 2021 after the Sussexes announced that she had given them her blessing to call their baby daughter ‘Lilibet’, the Queen’s childhood nickname.”
