My children will have to work for a living, says Sophie Wessex
Queen’s grandchildren ‘unlikely’ to use HRH titles
THE Countess of Wessex has said her children will have to work for a living and are unlikely to use their HRH titles when they grow up.
Sophie, 55, is married to the Queen’s youngest son, Prince Edward, and they have two children, Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, 16, and 12year-old James, Viscount Severn.
Although the children – who are 12th and 13th in line to the throne – are extremely close to their grandmother and are seen at royal events, their mother said she wants them to have ‘normal’ lives.
She said: ‘We try to bring them up with the understanding they are very likely to have to work for a living. Hence we made the decision not to use HRH titles.
‘ They have them and can decide to use them from 18, but I think it’s highly unlikely.’
Sophie acknowledged that being the grandchildren of the head of state and living in a vast 57-room house – Bagshot Park in Surrey – did make them privileged but said: ‘What’s normal? They go to a regular school [leading private schools]. They go to friends for sleepovers and parties. At weekends we do lots of dog walking and stay with friends.
‘I guess not everyone’s grandparents live in a castle, but where you are going is not the important part, or who they are. When they are with the Queen, she is
‘They go to a regular school’
their grandmother.’ The countess’s work with the victims of sexual violence in conflict has become a cornerstone of her public work.
Last year she met survivors in Kosovo – where an estimated 20,000 women were raped by Serb forces during the 1998-99 war without a single conviction.
She has since travelled to Sierra Leone and South Sudan.
The countess has become one of the breakout stars of the Royal Family during lockdown, embracing social media and video calls as the ‘ new normal’ way of working. But her journey as a working royal hasn’t always been easy.
She and her husband were forced to give up their own commercial careers outside of the Royal Family in 2001 – she ran her own PR firm and he had a television production company – after a string of scandals.
The countess was accused of using her royal position to attract business and was humiliatingly caught up in a tabloid newspaper ‘sting’.
Of having to give up her own work and devote herself to royal duties, she told The Sunday Times Magazine: ‘Certainly it took me a while to find my feet. The frustration was I had to reduce my expectations of what I could actually do.’
Asked about the Sussexes, who quit the firm to move abroad, she said: ‘We all try to help any new member of the family. I just hope they will be happy.’
But she did reveal the Royal Family hadn’t seen much change since Harry and Meghan decided to move to Los Angeles.
‘We’ve all got our own little portfolios. I don’t see anything changing, but if we’re asked to do more..... I don’t know because it hasn’t really happened.’ She said that the Queen is very supportive of her own work, as is her husband.
She dismissed comparisons with Diana, Princess of Wales and her campaign to rid swathes of Africa of landmines, saying: ‘I’m not able to raise the profile by that extent. I’m not going to be able to change things the way she did, but I hope it keeps it from sliding off the agenda.’
The countess said she and Edward very much split their work and domestic duties, with her husband cooking family BBQs, taking their son fishing and horse riding with Lady Louise. ‘He is very engaged as a father,’ she added.