The youngest of the family. Queen Elizabeth II was a doting grandmother to eight grandchildren, a circle that was rounded out in 2003 and 2007 with Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn, respectively.
The queen and Prince Philip’s youngest son, Prince Edward, shares the two children with wife Sophie, Countess of Wessex, who he married in 1999.
Lady Louise , 18, and son Viscount James, 14, have noticeably different titles from their cousins. Despite being the children of a prince — and the monarch’s grandchildren — Edward, 58, and Sophie, 57, opted not to give their children royal monikers like other children of a prince.
“We try to bring them up with the understanding that they are very likely to have to work for a living,” the former publicist told the U.K.’s The Sunday Times in June 2020. “Hence we made the decision not to use HRH titles. They have them and can decide to use them from 18, but it’s highly unlikely.”
While Edward and Sophie’s two teenagers have led a relatively low-profile royal life growing up, they frequently accompany their parents to formal gatherings. The brother-sister duo even joined their older cousins at a Saturday, September 17, vigil for the queen, who died one week earlier at the age of 96.
Lady Louise and Viscount James marched behind Prince William and Prince Harry on Saturday as they entered Westminster Hall in London. The foursome were joined by Princess Eugenie, Princess Beatrice, Zara Tindall (née Phillips) and Peter Phillips. All eight cousins stood on the raised platform in the historic building, standing guard around Her Majesty’s casket. While Harry and William both wore their military uniforms to reflect their armed forces tenures, the rest of the cousins wore black mourning ensembles.
Hours earlier, the Earl of Wessex released a statement about the loss of his mother and her bond with his two children.
“As a family, we have grown up learning to share our parents, especially our beloved mama, with the Nation, her Realms and the Commonwealth,” Edward wrote via Instagram on Friday, September 16. “While it has been lovely to have spent time saying our own farewell privately at Balmoral, it is now time to allow others to be able to say their farewell.”
He continued: “The Queen’s passing has left an unimaginable void in all our lives. Sophie and I have taken huge pleasure in seeing our James and Louise enjoying the places and activities that their grandparents loved so much. Given that my mama let us spend so much time with her, I think she also rather enjoyed watching those passions blossom. Those times together, those happy memories, have now become massively precious to each and every one of us.”
Scroll below to get to know Lady Louise and Viscount James:
Lady Louise and James, Viscount Severn, are the two children of Edward and Sophie. The earl and countess were married for nearly three years before expanding their family. Tim Rooke/Shutterstock
“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 their grandmother,” Sophie told The Sunday Times in a 2020 interview. Tim Rooke/Shutterstock
The siblings joined their cousins at Westminster Hall on Saturday where they stood guard beside their grandmother’s coffin. Tim Rooke/Shutterstock
Buckingham Palace announced in August that Edward and Sophie’s eldest child would matriculate at St. Andrew’s University in Scotland come fall. St. Andrew’s, notably, was the same school in which her cousin William met his now-wife, Princess Kate. Tim Rooke/Shutterstock
While the Duke of Edinburgh did not have a state funeral amid the coronavirus pandemic, both Lady Louise and James joined their parents at his intimate April 2021 memorial at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. Yui Mok/WPA Pool/Shutterstock
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