IT’S BABY LOUIS Prince William’s touching tribute for his father
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge ended four days of speculation yesterday by naming their baby son Louis Arthur Charles.
Prince Louis, who was born on Monday weighing 8lb 7oz, is the first in the immediate Royal Family to bear the name in almost 118 years.
He is fifth in line to the throne and the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s sixth great-grandchild.
His name, which came as a surprise to many as it is already one of Prince George’s middle names, has long been used by the Royal Family.
It goes back to Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, who married Queen Victoria’s daughter Alice.
More poignantly it is a tribute to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince Philip’s uncle and a distant cousin to the Queen.
He was Prince Charles’s mentor until he was assassinated by the IRA while on a fishing trip in Ireland in 1979.
The choice will please Charles, who also gets a name check, dispelling the notion that he and William have a strained relationship. Judith Rowyesterday botham, a historian at Plymouth University, said: “It’s very much an affectionate tribute to the Prince of Wales.
“Louis Mountbatten is someone who Prince William himself never knew but at the same time he has remained a very important figure in terms of the impact he had on Prince Charles’s life.
“Prince Philip was also deeply devoted to Lord Mountbatten. At one stroke Louis pleases great-grandfather and grandfather, which is a good thing.”
Mountbatten, known to the royals as Uncle Dickie, was the grandson of the Grand Duke of Hesse and Alice. Their daughter Victoria married Prince Louis of Battenberg and they had four children including Mountbatten and Prince Philip’s mother Alice.
Louis is also the name of one of William’s cousins on his mother’s Spencer side of the family. His uncle is Earl Spencer and his elder son and heir is Louis, who also has a daughter called Charlotte.
The Duchess of Cornwall’s daughter Laura Lopes has eight-year-old twin sons called Louis and Gus.
The royal couple’s announcement left Britain’s bookmakers quids in after much of the £2million bet on the name went on Arthur, Albert and James. Louis was thought so unlikely bookies gave odds of 20-1.
William has Louis as a middle name. He is William Arthur Philip Louis, while Prince Louis’s older brother Prince George is already George Alexander Louis.
Arthur, another popular royal name, goes back to the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Victoria’s seventh child and third son.