Two weekends ago, Robert Hardman’s new royal book began to be excerpted in the Mail and Telegraph. The biggest headline was “Queen Elizabeth was furious that Prince Harry and Meghan named their daughter Lilibet.” Royal reporters spent all of last week screaming about Meghan and Harry’s appalling rudeness for using QEII’s family nickname for their daughter. Columnist after columnist swore up and down that QEII was incandescent with rage over a baby’s name, and the Mirror reported exclusively that palace aides were “celebrating” because the truth finally came out about how much QEII despised her great-granddaughter’s name. Then, weirdly, Hardman began steadily walking back the story. Hardman claimed that QEII was merely upset that Harry’s lawyers threatened the BBC, when the BBC lied and reported that QEII had not been consulted or asked about the name ahead of time. Hardman said no, of course QEII was not mad about a baby’s name. Well, Operation Walk It Back is still upon us, with Hardman giving a new interview to Newsweek. Some highlights:

Whether Charles should repair relations with the Sussexes: “Yes, in some way I do [think that he should]. I don’t know how and when. Certainly, on this side of the Atlantic, the door is always open, and there’s so much other stuff going on. For Harry, it’s a different order of magnitude, because, does he want to reengage with his family? Charles would love to have him back in the fold, not being royal again—I think that ship has sailed, and I’m sure Harry would not want to do that.”

The Sussexes’ half-in solution: “Someone said to me today, ‘could this be the moment with the royal work shortage, for Harry to step in?’ But it doesn’t work like that. What would probably help move towards that situation is if he gradually started having a sort of normalizing… suddenly it’s not such a big deal if Harry and Meghan are coming over to the U.K. privately with their children and having a playdate with their cousins. A lot of families go through these things, and they don’t have to have it all scrutinised endlessly by the likes of you and me. I don’t pretend to be close to the Sussexes at all but, from what I glean, it’s a ‘never say never’ situation.”

On QEII’s anger about the name Lilibet: “I’ve seen a lot of reports that the queen was furious about the name. It wasn’t the naming that was the issue; it was the way that the naming was presented. The sort of war of words. It was the fact it was presented that she was in favor of this and then the BBC reported that actually she wasn’t asked. And then the Sussexes said, ‘That’s not true; here’s a lawyers’ letter,’ and the palace were asked to endorse this and very pointedly did not. That was what was the source of great fury.”

The controversy that Hardman created is unfair on a toddler: “I get that. She’s a completely blameless, adorable child. Queen Elizabeth loved Harry and loved Lilibet, and I’m quite sure didn’t envisage this ding-dong [quarrel] going on after her death. Once the lawyers’ letters start flying around, this has been a story in the public domain for some time.”

[From Newsweek]

First of all, when are the royalists going to learn that “Charles would love to have him back in the fold” is the very reason why Harry will never return? Harry and Meghan have been married for almost six years, they have two children and they have a strong marriage. The king or the institution constantly sending the message that they only want Harry back, or that they want the marriage to end, that’s not doing them any favors. It’s giving “leave your Black wife in America and come running back to us, your abusers.”

As for the Lilibet stuff… Hardman explicitly had the Lilibet stuff locked and loaded for the first round of book excerpts and it all went as planned, with royalists dutifully rolling out their stories about how the Sussexes are despicable people for honoring Harry’s grandmother by naming their daughter Lilibet. Then something shifted with the coverage – mid-rollout, Hardman and others were like “wait, this makes QEII sound awful and it’s also not believable in the least.” Weird that Hardman’s walkback hasn’t gotten anywhere near the kind of wall-to-wall coverage as the first version of the story.

Note by CB: Harry and Meghan say they got Queen Elizabeth’s blessing to name their daughter after her nickname, but the courtiers and royal rota disagree! Sign up for our mailing list and get the top 10 stories about the drama over Lilibet’s name. We only send one email a day on weekdays.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.