What Kate Middleton and Prince William’s Baby Lili Tribute to Meghan and Harry Says About Their Relationship

Kate Middleton and Prince William’s relationship with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry has been strained for some time. That’s been evident since the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back from their senior royal family roles, relocated to California, and gave a tell-all interview to Oprah, where Harry described his relationship with William as one of “space at the moment.” But the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge still dedicated an Instagram grid post and tweet congratulating Meghan and Harry on the birth of their daughter Lilibet Diana.

“We are all delighted by the happy news of the arrival of baby Lili,” the Duke and Duchess wrote on their Instagram and Twitter accounts. “Congratulations to Harry, Meghan and Archie.”

Us Weekly also reports that Kate and William “have sent Lilibet a gift,” per a source. That source added that Kate and William were “informed about the birth,” although the source did not specify whether that was before Meghan and Harry announced the news publicly or not. Meghan gave birth on Friday, June 4; they announced Lili’s arrival to the world on Sunday, June 6 on their Archewell site at 12 p.m.

The Daily Mail suggested that Palace officials did not know about the birth before Meghan and Harry’s announcement, writing, “Buckingham Palace officials were unaware the baby had been born until the announcement came out at 5 p.m. last night [London time] on social media.” And the timestamp on Kate and William’s post adds some fuel to that theory that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (or their team, at least) may not have known either.

Kate and William tweeted and shared their Instagram post congratulating the two at 3:00 p.m. ET, three hours after Meghan and Harry shared the news. The royal family congratulated Meghan and Harry at 3 p.m. too.

Following Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview, Harry spoke with William over the phone and then again, with Kate, at the funeral of their grandfather Prince Philip. Omid Scobie reported for Harper’s Bazaar that no peace was achieved, however.

In the case of Harry’s return to England for Philip’s funeral, “this trip was to honor the life of his grandfather and support his grandmother and relatives,” a source close to Harry told Scobie. “It was very much a family-focused period of time. Saturday broke the ice for future conversations but outstanding issues have not been addressed at any great length. The family simply put their issues to one side to focus on what mattered.”

Gayle King revealed that she spoke to Meghan and Harry in the days after the interview aired, and that while Harry had spoken to Charles and William, no one from the family talked to Meghan. “I think what is still upsetting to them is that the Palace keeps saying they want to work it out privately but yet they release these false stories that are coming out that are very disparaging against Meghan still,” King said. “No one in the royal family has talked to Meghan yet or at this particular time. And I think it’s frustrating for them to see that it’s a racial conversation about the royal family when all they wanted all along was for the royals to intervene and tell the press to stop with the unfair, inaccurate, false stories that definitely have a racial slant. And until you can acknowledge that, I think it’s going to be hard to move forward. But they both want to move forward with this. They want healing in this family. At the end of the day, it’s Harry’s family.”

Meghan spoke a little about her relationship with Kate in her Oprah interview, expressing her frustration that the tabloids claimed she made Kate cry before her wedding when the opposite happened: Kate made her cry, apologized to Meghan later, and the Palace never let Meghan correct the false tabloid story.

“I’m not sharing that piece about Kate in any way to be disparaging to her,” Meghan said. “I think it’s really important for people to understand the truth, but also I think a lot of it that was fed into by the media. Look, I would hope that she would’ve wanted that corrected. And maybe in the same way that the palace wouldn’t let anybody else negate it, they wouldn’t let her, because she’s a good person, and I think so much of what I have seen play out was this idea of polarity, where if you love me, you don’t have to hate her, and if you love her, you don’t need to hate me.”

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