QEII made a point of posing for photos with her white great-grandkids

Last Friday would have been Queen Elizabeth II’s 97th birthday. To celebrate, all of the royal social media accounts published the photo above, taken at Balmoral last summer, just weeks before her passing. I remember something about this last summer, in that there was a lot of conversation about how QEII “invited” all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to Balmoral for one last slumber party or something. As you can see, many of the kids were all there at the same time, including Prince George, Louis, Charlotte, the three Tindall kids (Mia, Lena and Lucas), the two Phillips girls (Isla and Savannah) plus Lady Louise and James, then-Viscount Severn. The missing great-grandchildren are Prince Archie, Princess Lilibet, Sienna Elizabeth Mapelli Mozzi and August Brooksbank.

Post-Jubbly, “the queen’s last Balmoral summer” was the “reason” why the Duke and Duchess of Sussex simply had to return to the UK, so they could schlep all the way to Balmoral just to spend a few minutes with a very ill queen. Except no one could keep their stories straight about whether QEII actually invited the Sussexes or whether the Sussexes declined the invitation. Keep in mind, the whole reason the Sussexes visited the UK in both April and June of last year was specifically to see QEII, only to have her people leak a stream of bullsh-t about how the Sussexes “demanded” to bring a photographer, only to be “shut down.” Courtiers were openly bragging about how they limited the Sussexes’ time with QEII back in June as well. The Jubbly was the last time the whole family was in the same place at the same time – surely it would have been the perfect moment to get photos with the extended family, right? Of course not. Now, with the publication of this photo, the British media is trying to make a point of saying Archie and Lili were excluded, etc. These people are exhausting.

Taken just a few weeks before her death, we now know that the late Queen was in the last flush of life, making the most of what she perhaps knew would be her final holiday, the last time she would see many of these children. The homely, jolly image was taken by the Princess of Wales and released to mark what would have been Queen Elizabeth’s 97th birthday on Friday.

But while it will undoubtedly be lauded, there are notable absentees. Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet were more than 5,000 miles away in Montecito, California – the only members of the immediate family who did not spend precious time with Queen Elizabeth last summer. Reports swirled at the time that Balmoral staff had been told to expect the Sussexes at some point during the break. But, in the event, they were a no-show, with some sources suggesting they had never been invited.

To cap off this sad tale, we now know that Prince Harry failed to make it to his grandmother’s bedside on the day she died, despite a desperate, last-minute dash from Windsor. The Sussexes had flown over to the UK on Sept 3, five days before the Queen died. Archie and Lilibet are not the only great-grandchildren absent from this family portrait – Princess Eugenie’s son August and Princess Beatrice’s daughter Sienna are also missing. But the Yorks did all spend valuable time at Balmoral last August, along with both Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York.

The Sussexes had flown back with their children for the Platinum Jubilee in June, the one-and-only time one-year-old Lilibet met her namesake. The late Queen is said to have banned Harry and Meghan from taking a professional photographer to Windsor Castle to capture the moment amid fears that any picture would be shared with US television networks. The Sussexes may one day release their own family snaps of their children with the late Queen.

But for now, we are reliant on the Princess’s deft hand and meticulous eye to depict the monarch not as head of state but as grandmother – and great-grandmother – surrounded by the younger generation.

[From The Telegraph]

This isn’t the flex they think it is. Instead of making QEII look like a doting grandmotherly figure to the nation, her memory is being burnished as someone too out of it to stop the racists in her court from repeatedly and publicly snubbing her mixed-race relations. Once again, the Windsors look like they’re gleefully putting out the “Whites Only” sign. Besides that, conspiracies are already afoot that at least one kid (Louis) was Photoshopped in. (I actually think the lighting issue would be “solved” if there was a lamp nearby, to Louis’s left.)

So, apparently they photoshopped Louis into the picture with the Queen?! ????????????????????????????

The “recollections may vary” people ????????????????????????#RoyalFamily pic.twitter.com/dNifzsBKed

— Queen Zee ???????????? (@marzodi) April 22, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar, Princess of Wales/Kensington Palace.