Daniela Elser: Mystery behind why it took 94 minutes for royal family to celebrate Lilibet's birth

It's a girl! Prince Harry and Meghan celebrate birth of Lilibet 'Lili' Diana. Video / Getty

OPINION:

In 94 minutes you could make a batch of scones to Buckingham Palace's official specifications, enjoy The King's Speech or watch the most popular "How to curtsy" video on YouTube 17 times.

However, if you happen to be one of the so-called "Men in Grey" who run Buckingham Palace that is precisely how long it takes to put out a 43-word statement about the birth of Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's, daughter Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.

Given the drama surrounding her parents, there is something tragically predictable about the fact the tiny girl's arrival in the world has similarly been marked by a new wave of controversy.

Most mysteriously and pressing today: Why did it take the palace an eye-watering 94 minutes to put out any sort of official communication celebrating her birth? Was the palace's inkjet printer playing up?

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Here's how things played out.

While Lili was born on Friday morning, US time, at a hospital in Santa Barbara, her birth was only revealed at 5pm on Sunday, UK-time. It then took the palace until 6.34pm to release an official communication about her birth, during which time even William Shatner had popped up and wished the Sussex family well.

Queen Elizabeth II, Meghan the Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry stand on a balcony to watch a flypast of Royal Air Force aircraft pass over Buckingham Palace in 2018. Photo / AP

When the official missive was finally released, Buckingham Palace said, with their signature penchant for freewheeling capitalisation, "The Queen, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, and The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been informed and are delighted with the news of the birth of a daughter for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex."

No matter how much you might squint and try to make sense of things here, it is hard to get away from the fact it looks suspiciously like the royal family and palace aides were caught on the hop by the Sussexes' announcement.

According to the Daily Mail, "Buckingham Palace officials were unaware the baby had been born until the announcement came out at 5pm last night on social media."

Lending further weight to the possibility that the Queen et al were blindsided by Harry and Meghan's reveal was that even after news of Lili's birth had already broken and was being carried by TV stations, Her Majesty's official Twitter account was still posting about a recent engagement carried out by Princess Anne.

(Heaven forbid anything coming between the redoubtable Princess Royal getting her due for a trip to Dorset for the anniversary of the 13th Signal Regiment.)

This week HRH The Princess Royal, Colonel-in-Chief of The Royal Corps of Signals, travelled to Dorset to celebrate the first anniversary of the 13th Signal Regiment pic.twitter.com/oR2TBVGsDy

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) June 6, 2021

All of this does not particularly bode well for trans-Atlantic Windsor relations.

In a year marked by Harry and Meghan's regular, rancorous media eruptions, the Duke's relationship with his family is clearly in a fragile place, a situation that cannot have been helped by the palace now looking like they were out of the loop and caught unawares.

After all, leaving the other side looking red-faced has never been known to help tamp down inflamed tempers and or improve highly-strung intra-family politics.

What is particularly curious here is not just the odd lag between the Montecito and London releases coming out but that Buckingham Palace was not prepped for this moment anyway. Since Meghan's pregnancy was revealed way back in February, it was always expected that she would give birth around about now.

Given this, why wasn't some palace media flunkie tasked with having a pro forma, suitably antiseptic congratulatory statement primed and ready to go the minute news broke on the West Coast?

Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, pose with their newborn son Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor in St George's Hall at Windsor Castle on May 8, 2019. Photo / AP

The royal family might move at a positively glacial pace but they've had at least four months. What the dickens have they been doing?

But wait! Don't put your deerstalker and magnifying glass away just yet because there is another brewing mystery afoot which is, did the Queen give the Duke and Duchess permission for them to use the highly personal epithet for their daughter's name?

The touching name carries with it a certain marital intimacy given that it was Her Majesty's husband of 72 years, Prince Philip, who famously and affectionately called his wife by the sobriquet. (At his funeral, a handwritten note signed "Lilibet" from the Queen is said to have sat on top of his coffin.)

That the palace's statement failed to even reference the Sussexes' choice of such a freighted, meaningful moniker is noteworthy.

According to The Times, "the Queen was informed by the Duke that her 11th great-grandchild would be named after her".

"Informed" you see. Not "pleased by" or "touched". Just the brusque-sounding "informed" which does not suggest a lengthy, mutually satisfactory consultative process.

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrive to attend the WellChild Awards Ceremony in London on October 15, 2019. Photo / AP

The question of just how much say, or lack thereof, the Queen may have had in the naming of her 11th great-grandchild and whether the Sussexes sought her approval is now gathering steam.

The palace "did not respond" to the Daily Beast's very well-connected royal correspondent's request "about the exact detail of whether the Queen was asked for her blessing or simply 'informed' of the name".

Given the current climate, if Her Majesty was tickled pink and thrilled to bits over Harry and Meghan's surprising choice of moniker for their daughter, surely the palace would have said so rather than let speculation run rife.

All of this bears an unfortunate resemblance to the confusion that surrounded the birth of Lili's big brother Archie in 2019.

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrive at the annual Endeavour Fund Awards in London on March 5, 2020. Photo / AP

A refresher if you will: UK media outlets were told that Meghan had gone into labour from about 1.30pm on May 6. About 45 minutes after all the press releases had gone out at 2pm, it was revealed the baby had arrived.

Yet, it did not take long for it to emerge that Archie had in fact been born at 5.26am, that is, that the Sussexes' had sat on the news for eight hours and had bizarrely claimed the Duchess was in labour hours after her child had in fact already been safely delivered.

It's hard not to feel for little Lili. The tot is barely four days old and yet her entry into the world has set off a squall of controversy. More than the "Lilibet" or the "Diana" in her name, it might just be the "Sussex" that will direct the course of her life.

• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.