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As the late Queen’s cousin and eldest confidante, Lady Elizabeth Anson shared an intimate relationship with Her Majesty like no other.
For several years, the details of their lengthy phone calls and private dinners remained shrouded in secrecy.
But, following her death on November 1, 2020, poignant revelations by journalist and royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith shone an entirely new light on the late Queen’s beloved friend of more than 60 years.
These included her rather sour views on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding and subsequent Royal exit, alongside her personal nickname for the late Monarch.
In her Substack ‘Royal Extras’, Ms Bedell Smith shared how Lady Elizabeth, known as Liza to friends, was witness to the late Queen’s ‘turmoil’ ahead of Prince Harry and Meghan’s nuptials in May 2018.
The author recalled how she and Liza had watched Prince Harry and Meghan’s televised interview to announce their engagement in November 2017, before Liza formally met the Suits actress the following February to discuss wedding plans.
But while Meghan was initially ‘full of charm’, she quickly dismissed any ideas that Lady Elizabeth, who had long reigned supreme as the Monarchy’s most favoured party planner, would have any involvement in their nuptials.
Instead, she declared that she couldn’t ‘make any decisions’ until Harry returned to the UK from Botswana.
Following the death of Lady Elizabeth Anson (pictured) on November 1, 2020, poignant revelations by journalist and royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith shone an entirely new light on the late Queen’s beloved friend of more than 60 years
Lady Elizabeth shared an irreplaceable bond with the late Monarch, despite the pair being separated by 15 years in age. Indeed, their close relationship was said to have strengthened following the deaths of two of the late Monarch’s closest relatives, her mother and sister
‘He will write from Africa,’ Meghan reportedly told Liza.
Liza later told Ms Bedell Smith that Harry had been in touch to say they had decided to go ‘another way’ with their plans, and claimed his grandmother was ‘content with this’ decision.
But the reality seemed to be somewhat different. ‘When I spoke with the Queen, she said she is not at all content,’ Liza told Ms Bedell Smith
‘She (Meghan) sees things in a different way.’
Writing in her royal biography, My Mother And I, Ingrid Steward told how Liza, who was also great-niece of the Queen Mother and a goddaughter of King George VI, had described the Queen as being left somewhat blindsided by Harry’s marriage proposal.
‘Neither Charles nor Prince Philip was present when, in the middle of a windswept Norfolk field, Harry asked his grandmother for permission to marry Meghan,’ Seward wrote.
The Queen gave a ‘cryptic’ reply, saying: ‘”Well then, I suppose I have to say yes”.’
Seward claims that Harry was ‘floored’ by her answer but soon realised his grandmother had given him permission.
In her Substack ‘Royal Extras’, Ms Bedell Smith shared how Lady Elizabeth, known as Liza to friends, had rather sour views on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s wedding and subsequent Royal exit, alongside a personal nickname for the late Monarch
According to Ms Bedell Smith, while she was ‘rightly proud of her closeness to the Queen’, the party-planner extraordinaire was ‘also very discreet and highly respectful’. The two even spoke in code – with ‘Shirley Temple’ meaning that a party was afoot for the Her Majesty
But by the time the late Monarch was sat in the pews at St George’s Chapel in Windsor, she was said to have been left with feelings of upset and dismay about the newlyweds.
Liza shared how in the build up to the nuptials, the late Queen had allegedly experienced a ‘rude’ 10-minute interaction between the grandma and grandson, while Meghan was also reluctant to share any details surrounding her dress.
Yet, according to Ms Bedell Smith, the late Queen’s friend had held much fonder feelings for Prince William’s wife following their fairytale wedding in 2011.
She wrote: ‘Liza described it as a “wonderfully beautiful and understated service, and the church was filled with people who loved them both. There was huge joy. Kate wore the perfect dress for the Abbey, and the Queen couldn’t be missed because she was in bright yellow.
‘At the reception in Buckingham Palace, the flowers looked like they came from the garden. Kate did it brilliantly. She was fantastic with perfect strangers. I watched her”.’
And it seemed she wasn’t the only one sceptical about the Royal wedding, with Ms Bedell Smith also revealing how Liza had disclosed that Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, had particularly acute reservations.
She added: ‘Liza also said that Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was “frightened of coming to the wedding.” I asked her if Meghan was being bossy. “So I gather,” Liza replied, “Very much so.”
Indeed, Thomas Markle did not attend, citing his absence due to health problems, with Harry’s father, King Charles, walking her down part of the aisle.
Ms Bedell Smith revealed how Liza had disclosed how Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, had particularly acute reservations about the 2018 Royal Wedding. She added: ‘Liza also said that Meghan’s father, Thomas Markle, was “frightened of coming to the wedding”‘
Yet, according to Ms Bedell Smith, the late Queen’s friend had held much fonder feelings for Prince William’s wife following their fairytale wedding in 2011. She wrote: ‘Liza described it as a “wonderfully beautiful and understated service”‘
The Queen’s reservations about her grandson’s choice of bride continued to prevail after the wedding as stories began to emerge of Meghan’s alleged high-handedness towards staff and a growing rift between the so-called ‘Fab Four’.
‘Meghan and William and Kate are not working well,’ Lady Elizabeth reported to Bedell Smith. ‘That is what the Queen said, particularly about the two girls.’
Liza was also said to have ominously declared: ‘The wedge between the brothers is really too bad’.
Perhaps indicative of her close bond with the late Monarch, Liza even had a special name for the late Monarch, and it was not Lilibet.
Four years on from Lady Elizabeth’s death aged 79, Ms Bedell Smith revealed that she often referred to the late Queen as ‘Jemima’.
‘In the Queen’s later years, Lady Elizabeth affectionately referred to her as ‘Jemima’ (for reasons she never explained) and ‘The Number One Lady’,’ she wrote on the newsletter platform.
A far stretch from her Christian name, Elizabeth, the nickname Jemima is just one of a handful of monikers used to refer to the late monarch, perhaps the most well known being Lilibet.
At the time of her death in 2022, aged 96, her official title was: Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
Perhaps indicative of her close bond with the late Monarch, Liza even had a special name for the late Monarch, and it was not Lilibet. Four years on from Lady Elizabeth’s death aged 79, Ms Bedell Smith revealed that she often referred to the late Queen as ‘Jemima’
In other official realms, she was known as ‘Mother of all People’ by the Salish nation in Canada, ‘Paramount Chief’ to many in Fiji, and ‘The White Heron’ by the Maori people of New Zealand.
Beyond her role as Head of State, she carried a range of sweeter, more personal monikers coined by her family members, including Gan Gan, Cabbage, and Lilibet.
A young Prince William even added Gary to the list after one incident in which he shouted for Gary, rather than Granny, caught on.
Yet Lady Elizabeth shared an irreplaceable bond with the late Monarch, despite the pair being separated by 15 years in age.
Indeed, their close relationship was said to have strengthened following the deaths of two of the late Monarch’s closest relatives, her mother and sister.
But, according to Ms Bedell Smith, while she was ‘rightly proud of her closeness to the Queen’, the party-planner extraordinaire was ‘also very discreet and highly respectful’.
The two even spoke in code – with ‘Shirley Temple’, traditionally understood as a winsome child star, a secret word which meant a party was afoot for the Her Majesty.
Lady Elizabeth was born at Windsor Castle during World War II and with King George VI as a godfather, she grew up surrounded by, and on first name terms with, the royals.
When she married, the then 20-year-old Princess Anne was a bridesmaid, and her society cameraman brother Patrick (the Earl of) Lichfield, who gave her away, was — along with the Earl of Snowdon — the royals’ go-to photographer.
Lady Elizabeth’s first event as a party planner was for the late Queen Mother. ‘She was hosting a party for one of her godchildren,’ she previously told Mail on Sunday. ‘I remember charging very little and receiving a letter from the Queen Mother telling me to double the invoice’
No palace event, it seemed, was complete without input from Lady Elizabeth (pictured in 1969). She arranged the Queen’s 80th birthday party and celebrations at the Ritz to mark the 50th anniversary of her Coronation
Her first event as a party planner was for the late Queen Mother. ‘She was hosting a party for one of her godchildren,’ Lady Elizabeth previously told Mail on Sunday. ‘I remember charging very little and receiving a letter from the Queen Mother telling me to double the invoice.’
Ms Bedell Smith shared that during her first conversations with Liza in the spring of 1998, she recalled meeting the late Princess Diana aged just 16-years-old when she planned the wedding of her sister, Lady Jane, to Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s assistant private secretary.
‘Diana was a shy and rather gauche bridesmaid, not particularly pretty, with a tiny hint of red in her hair’, Liza told her, adding that the late Princess of Wales was ‘very brave’.
While Liza played no role in the planning process of Charles and Diana’s Royal Wedding in 1981, she hosted a ‘lively black-tie party at Claridge’s for 500 guests’ that evening, led by the late Queen and Prince Philip.
In the foyer, Lady Elizabeth had set up a large screen where guests could watch footage of the wedding on loop, with Liza telling Ms Bedell Smith that the Queen had ‘sat and watched with Princess Grace of Monaco and Nancy Reagan’.
Indicative of her direct insight into the Royal fold, Ms Bedell Smith also shared how Liza told her: ‘I heard about Diana’s moods early. She suddenly refused to come to dinner.
While Liza played no role in the planning process of Charles and Diana’s Royal Wedding in 1981, she hosted a ‘lively black-tie party at Claridge’s for 500 guests’ that evening, led by the late Queen and Prince Philip
‘The Queen asked Charles to persuade her, and he returned red-faced and said he could not. I was fascinated by this. I cannot imagine not doing that. It did happen, and everyone was vastly embarrassed.’
And so when Charles’ eldest son, Prince William married his beloved university sweetheart Kate Middleton in 2011, the Queen called upon her close friend and renowned party planner to organise a party for all the visiting royal guests.
By then Lady Elizabeth was a veteran of royal party planning. No palace event, it seemed, was complete without input from Lady Elizabeth. Indeed, she had arranged the Queen’s 80th birthday party and celebrations at the Ritz to mark the 50th anniversary of her Coronation.
Over her impeccable career, she was said to have hosted bashes for some of the most well-known figures, from Baroness Thatcher and Sir Mick Jagger, to Tom Cruise and Bill Clinton.
Yet it appeared that weddings remained a specialty – ranging from pop star Sting’s to Trudie Styler to the slightly more reserved nuptials for Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece (to heiress Chantal Miller).
In the final years of her life, while Liza became unwell with lung cancer, she continued her work while also acting as a strong pillar of support for the late Queen.
Following her tragic passing, in April 2021 Her Majesty made Lady Elizabeth a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order as a sign of her personal esteem and outstanding personal service to a British Monarch.
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