Everything we learnt about Lilibet from Prince Harry's memoir Spare

(Image credit: Netflix/Future)

published 21 January 2023

Prince Harry shone light on a lot of previously unknown information in his recently released memoir, Spare, but among all the controversy were some incredibly rare and sweet details about his young daughter, Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

In the final chapters of his scathing memoir Spare, Prince Harry revealed some heartwarming anecdotes about fatherhood and his new life in Montecito with his wife, Meghan Markle, and his two young kids, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor and Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
From the emotional details of her birth in June 2021, to her resemblance to Harry's mum, the late Princess Diana, Harry revealed more about Lilibet than ever before.
In other royal news, Prince Harry shares Archie and Lilibet's 'sibling rivalry' that has similar aspects to his and William's.

While many focused on the bombshell accusations hurled at his family, for others, it was the heartwarming and rare details of fatherhood and his family life in Montecito that made Prince Harry's memoir so brilliant.

In the final chapters of Spare, Prince Harry, who has previously revealed he has always wanted to be a dad, spoke candidly about fatherhood and building a safe life for his new family in America alongside his wife, Meghan Markle.

In the first family anecdote shared in the memoir, Harry detailed the emotional birth of his daughter, which happened at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in June 2021, and shared that he helped to bring her into the world. He wrote, "When the doctor said it was a matter of minutes, I told Meg that I wanted mine to be the first face our little girl saw."

He later added, "I slid my hands under the tiny back and neck. Gently, but firmly, as I'd seen in films, I pulled our precious daughter from that world into this, and cradled her just a moment, trying to smile at her, to see her, but honestly, I couldn't see anything. I wanted to say: Hello. I wanted to say: Where have you come from? I wanted to say: Is it better there? Is it peaceful? Are you frightened? Don't be, don’t be, all will be well. I'll keep you safe."

While Harry and Meghan's daughter was named after the late Queen Elizabeth, with Lilibet being her family nickname, Lilibet only got to meet her namesake when the Sussex family travelled to the UK for the Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022.

Recalling the meeting and the days following it, Harry wrote, "For days and days we couldn't stop hugging the children, couldn’t let them out of our sight—though I also couldn't stop picturing them with Granny. The final visit. Archie making deep, chivalrous bows, his baby sister Lilibet cuddling the monarch's shins. Sweetest children, Granny said, sounding bemused. She'd expected them to be a bit more…American, I think? Meaning, in her mind, more rambunctious."

Archie and Lilibet are also mentioned in the acknowledgements in Spare. Harry wrote, "Above all my deepest and adoringest thanks to Archie and Lili, for letting Papa go off to read and think and reflect, to my mother-in-law (aka Grandma), and to my incredible wife, for too many millions of gifts and sacrifices, great and small, to ever enumerate."

Harry and Meghan previously allowed royal fans a peak into their children's lives as they shared unseen photographs and video footage of them in their incredibly popular Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which debuted in December 2022.

In episode six, Harry revealed who in his family his children remind him of. He said, "I think, at the moment, I see a lot of my wife in Archie and I see a lot of my mum [Princess Diana] in Lili. She's very Spencer-like. She's got the same blue eyes."

"Blue, blue, blue eyes," Meghan then emphasised. As footage showing Lilibet in a floral romper crawling across the family's garden in Montecito popped up on screen, Harry added, "Sort of like golden reddish hair."

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Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse is a news writer for Goodtoknow, specialising in family content. She began her freelance journalism career after graduating from Nottingham Trent University with an MA in Magazine Journalism, receiving an NCTJ diploma, and earning a First Class BA (Hons) in Journalism at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute. She has also worked with BBC Good Food and The Independent.