Countess Sophie of Wessex has made an effort to shelter her children and provide them with “normal” lives. ¨
Because of her and her husband’s efforts, their daughter—Lady Louise Windsor—once told her mother that other people kept telling her that her grandmother was the Queen.
Lady Louise never realized she had a connection to royalty because her parents made an effort to live everyday lives and never used their HRH titles.
Prince Edward and his wife Sophie Wessex have spent much of their married life shielding their children from royal life. The two raised two children: their daughter Lady Louise Windsor and their younger son James, Viscount Severn.
In May of 2016, People magazine revealed the story of how Lady Louise discovered her grandmother’s true identity. During a BBC interview, Sophie revealed that at age 12, Louise attended school without ever realizing who her grandmother was. She said that Louise came home saying,
“‘Mummy, people keep on telling me that grandma is the Queen.'”
When Sophie asked her daughter how she felt about her grandmother’s actual title, Louise replied that she “didn’t understand.” The Countess believed her young daughter had not previously understood that there was only one queen in England.
Other than their confusion about their family’s titles, the two children were able to be raised with a focus on giving back and caring for the earth. Louise and James were raised like any non-royal children, even going to school at a regular institution.
Prince Edward is the youngest brother of King Charles III’s. He and Sophie have been married since 1999. The two have been on the same page about raising their children in a way that would help them to fend for themselves in the real world.
The two have there kept largely out of the public eye and are now at the ages of 18 and 14. They were most recently seen at their grandmother’s vigil at Westminster.
Outside of attending everyday school and staying out of the spotlight, Sophie and Edward have shared that their children also sometimes stayed with friends on the weekend or walked dogs. While acknowledging that her children still had advantages coming from royalty, she has shared one of their family’s major lessons:
“But where you are going is not the important part, or who they are. When they are with the Queen, she is their grandmother.”
Lady Louise has internalized this mentality herself, recently even working at a normal job at a garden center, allegedly earning about $7.41 an hour. The Mirror claimed that customers of the shop praised the teenager for being “polite and attentive.”
In addition to their strong work ethic, the Wessexes also have worked on improving the world around them however they can. The Mirror shared a photo of the family picking up litter at Portsmouth beach for an hour and a half.
With all of the character-building and the downplaying of their royal titles in the family, it will be interesting to see what Louise and James do with their futures.