One proud “Gan-Gan”! While Queen Elizabeth IIAlthough she has a very full-time job as sovereign of the United Kingdom, Commonwealth territories and other duties, she still manages to find time for her family and many great-grandchildren.
“The queen is in her element when she’s got her great-grandchildren sitting on her lap and having that family time,” royal expert Kerene Barefield exclusively told Us Weekly in December 2021. “I’m sure it’s something that we’ll never ever get to witness — that kind of really relaxed family time, which is what everyone else has at Christmas.”
The long-reigning monarch — who marked 70 years on the throne in February 2022 — first became a proud great-grandparent in December 2010 when grandson Peter PhillipsSavannah, his eldest daughter, was welcomed by him and his ex-wife. Autumn Kelly. Since then, Elizabeth’s brood has expanded to include 12 great-grandchildren, including Prince William Duchess Kate’s three kids, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, as well as Prince Harry Meghan Markle’s two little ones, Archie and Lilibet.
“George is only 2 [and a half] and he calls her ‘Gan-Gan,’” the Duchess of Cambridge previously said during a March 2016 interview for ITV’s Our Queen at Ninety documentary. “She always leaves a little gift or something in their room when we go and stay, and that just shows her love for the family.”
Kate added: “The queen was really thrilled that [my second child]As a child, she was very small. I believe that we all came back to Kensington Palace as soon as she was born. [from the hospital], she was one of our first visitors here.”
Elizabeth is close to many of her relatives. However, her parents chose to honor her when naming their child. Upon Charlotte’s birth in May 2015, William and Kate chose the middle monikers “Elizabeth Diana” to honor both the queen and his late mother, Princess Diana. Harry also took inspiration from his mother and grandmother’s legacies when his daughter Lilibet Diana was born in June 2021.
“Lili is named after her great-grandmother, Her Majesty The Queen, whose family nickname is Lilibet,” the Archewell cofounders wrote on their organization website that June. “Her middle name, Diana, was chosen to honor her beloved late grandmother, The Princess of Wales.”
Princess Beatrice, for her part, honored the queen by choosing the name “Sienna Elizabeth” for her little girl, who was born in September 2021. Beatrice’s sister, Princess Eugenie, took inspiration from the queen’s late husband, Prince Philip, when it came to a middle name for her son August Philip upon his February 2021 birth.
While many of Elizabeth’s great-grandchildren don’t have as many public appearances as the monarch, they frequently steal the show at the ones they attend. As the queen celebrated her Platinum Jubilee during the annual Trooping the Colour parade, June 2022, she was caught sharing a sweet moment in a sweet moment, with Prince Louis, who was born April 2018.
Louis covered his ears while he stood on the Buckingham Palace balcony watching the military flyover. It was difficult to keep his attention. At one point, Elizabeth kindly encouraged him to look up at the planes’ formation in the sky.
Scroll below to see the queen’s sweetest family moments with her great-grandchildren through the years:
