Lady Louise Windsor

Lady Louise Windsor
Lady Louise at Trooping the Colour, June 2013
Full name Louise Alice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor[1]
House	House of Windsor
Father	Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex
Mother	Sophie, Countess of Wessex
Born	(2003-11-08) 8 November 2003 Frimley Park Hospital, Frimley, Surrey, England
Religion	Church of England

Lady Louise Windsor^[2] (Louise Alice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor;^[1] born 8 November 2003) is the elder child and only daughter of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex. She is the youngest granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Louise is currently tenth in the line of succession to succeed her grandmother.

Life

Lady Louise was born prematurely on 8 November 2003 (at 23:32 GMT)^[3] at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey after her mother was rushed there by ambulance from the Wessex home at Bagshot Park, Surrey; Prince Edward was not present for the birth because it came so suddenly. Lady Louise was delivered by the Royal Surgeon and Gynaecologist Marcus Setchell via emergency Caesarean section due to placental abruption, which caused severe blood loss to both child and mother. Louise was transferred to a neo-natal unit in St George's Hospital, Tooting, London, as a precaution. Meanwhile, the Countess remained at Frimley Park until she was well enough to be discharged, on 23 November 2003. Lady Louise's name was announced on 27 November.^[4] She was baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 24 April 2004, and her godparents were: Lady Alexandra Etherington, her third cousin once removed (from Edward VII), Lady Sarah Chatto, her first cousin once removed (from George VI), Lord Ivar Mountbatten, her second cousin once removed (from Prince Louis of Battenberg), Rupert Elliott, and Francesca Schwarzenbach.^[5][6]

Born with esotropia, Louise underwent a 30-minute operation under general anaesthetic in an attempt to correct the problem in January 2006.^[7] The operation was unsuccessful, and she had further treatment in late 2013 that corrected her vision.^[8] At age 9, she sustained a broken arm falling off a pony.^[9]

Louise is 10th in the line of succession to the thrones of the Commonwealth realms.

She is a member of the Brownie division of Girl Guides of which her mother is a patron. Her mother also used to be a Brownie (and of the other Girl Guide age group divisions) when she was a child.^[10]

Official engagements

She was one of the bridesmaids at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on 29 April 2011.^[11]

Lady Louise attended her first Trooping the Colour in June 2009, and rode in the carriages with her family at Trooping the Colour for the first time in June 2011.^[12] Louise was again present at Trooping the Colour in 2012 and 2013.

Since 2011 Louise has accompanied her parents, grandparents and other members of the royal family on the walk to church on Christmas Day in Sandringham.^[13]

On Easter 2012, Louise accompanied her paternal grandparents, parents and cousin, Princess Eugenie of York, to the Easter service in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.^[14]

In June 2012, Louise attended the Jubilee Thames River Pageant with her parents and younger brother. A few days later Lady Louise accompanied her parents to the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's Cathedral in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.^[15]

On 4 June 2013, Louise was the youngest member of the royal family to attend her grandmother's 60th coronation anniversary celebration at Westminster Abbey.^[16] On 11 June, Louise along with her brother attended the Coronation festival at Buckingham Palace.^[17]

In April 2015 Lady Louise and her brother James participated in their first overseas engagement. They accompanied their parents on a trip to South Africa.^[18]

Titles, styles and honours

Louise is styled as "Lady Louise Windsor",^[2] although letters patent issued in 1917 (and still remaining in force today) assign a princely status and the style of Royal Highness to all male-line grandchildren of a monarch. Therefore, all else being equal, Louise would have been styled as Her Royal Highness Princess Louise of Wessex. However, when her parents married, the Queen, via a Buckingham Palace press release, announced that (in hopes of avoiding some of the burdens associated with royal titles) their children would be styled as the children of an earl, rather than as princes or princesses.^[19] Thus, court communications refer to her as Lady Louise Windsor.^[20]

Honours

In June 2008, to recognise a visit by her father to the Canadian province of Manitoba, the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba-in-Council named a lake in the north of the province after Lady Louise.^[21]

Ancestry

Her mother descends from King Henry IV of England.^[22] Louise is also related to the family of the Viscounts Molesworth by her mother's descent from Robert Molesworth, 1st Viscount Molesworth.^[23]

References