Lord Nicholas Windsor

Lord Nicholas Windsor
Windsor in 2013.
Born	(1970-07-25) 25 July 1970 University College Hospital, London
Other names	Nicholas Charles Edward Jonathan Windsor
Spouse(s)	Lady Nicholas Windsor (m. 2006)
Children	Albert Windsor (b. 2007) Leopold Windsor (b. 2009) Louis Windsor (b. 2014)
Parent(s)	Prince Edward, Duke of Kent Katharine, Duchess of Kent

Lord Nicholas Charles Edward Jonathan Windsor (born 25 July 1970) is the youngest child of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, a great-grandson of King George V. He is a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II.

Early years

Lord Nicholas Windsor was born in 1970 at University College Hospital, London, and was the first member of the British Royal Family to be born in a hospital. He has an older brother, the Earl of St Andrews, and a sister, Lady Helen Taylor. He was baptised on 11 September 1970 at Windsor Castle. His godparents included Charles, Prince of Wales and Donald Coggan, at the time Archbishop of York and later Archbishop of Canterbury.^[1]

Windsor was educated at Westminster School and then Harrow School. He later attended Harris Manchester College, Oxford, where he studied theology.

Religion

In a private ceremony in 2001 he was received into the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore forfeited his right of succession to the British throne. The Act of Settlement bars past or present Roman Catholics, and those who marry Roman Catholics, from the succession. Lord Nicholas became the first male blood Royal to convert to Catholicism since King Charles II on his deathbed in 1685.

On 14 July 2011, he became an Honorary Vice-President of the Friends of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, an Anglican Ordinariate within the Roman Catholic Church.

Marriage and family

Windsor met his future wife, Paola Doimi de Lupis Frankopan, at a party in New York City in 1999 to mark the Millennium.^[2] He became engaged to her in July 2006. They married on 4 November 2006 in the Church of St Stephen of the Abyssinians in the Vatican following a civil ceremony on 19 October 2006 in a London register office^[3] and she became Lady Nicholas Windsor. As required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom consented to the marriage.^[4] A House of Commons Early Day Motion welcomed "the first overt marriage within the rites of the Catholic Church of a member of the Royal Family since the reign of Queen Mary I, and the first marriage of a member of the Royal Family to take place within the Vatican City State".^[5]

Lord and Lady Nicholas Windsor had their first child, a son, Albert Louis Philip Edward Windsor, on 22 September 2007 at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London. Albert is the eighth grandchild for the Duke and Duchess of Kent.^[6][7] The child is the first Windsor to carry the name Albert since King George VI, but the couple has said he was actually named after Saint Albert the Great, according to some reports, while his middle name Philip was given in honour of Saint Philip Neri.^[8] The names Louis and Edward are after his maternal and paternal grandfathers, respectively.^[6] An Early Day Motion in the House of Commons welcomed the Baptism of Albert as the first Royal child to be Baptised a Catholic since 1688.^[9] Albert was baptised Catholic in the Queen's Chapel in St. James's Palace.

Lady Nicholas gave birth to the couple's second child, Leopold Ernest Augustus Guelph Windsor,^[10] on 8 September 2009 at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.^[11] Leopold was baptised by Angelo Cardinal Comastri in St. Peter's in the Vatican on 29 May 2010.^[12]

In late April 2014, it was announced that the couple is expecting their third child ^[13] and a third son, Louis Arthur Nicholas Felix Windsor was born 27 May 2014.

Lord Nicholas and his sons are still in the line of succession to the Dukedom of Kent, the descent of which is not regulated by the Act of Settlement.

Ancestry

Royal Family role

Lord Nicholas has no official or state role. As a close blood relative of the royal family, he is invited to family events such as royal weddings and birthdays. He was in the Royal Box at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert in June 2012.^[14]

Work for charity

In 2011, Windsor was appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life.^[15] He is co-signatory of the San José Articles which promote the protection of the unborn child.^[16]

In 2007, Windsor accepted the invitation to become Patron of Bromley Mind. The position is a public statement of his support for its work, and he makes a practical contribution from time to time by supporting special events and fundraising campaigns.

Windsor has worked for the Refugee Council in London, the DePaul Trust for the homeless and in a school for autistic children. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre in Washington DC. He is a Trustee of the Catholic National Library UK and The Right to Life Charitable Trust, an educational body whose goal is the full protection of the unborn child.^[17] Windsor is the Royal Patron, along with his wife Paola of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst.^[18] A Charitable endeavour to make the historic collections of Stonyhurst College and the story they tell more widely accessible particularly to young people in the surrounding areas.^[19]

He wrote for the American journal First Things on the subject of abortion,^[20] an article which was entered into the United States Congressional Record by Congressman Chris Smith.^[21][22] He has written in the Telegraph^[23] and the The Catholic Herald^[24] on Pro Life issues.

Lord Nicholas is Patron of The Society of King Charles the Martyr.

Footnotes