Sylvana Windsor, Countess of St Andrews

Sylvana Palma Windsor, Countess of St Andrews ^[1] (born Sylvana Palma Tomaselli on 28 May 1957), is the wife of George, Earl of St Andrews, elder son and heir of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. A historian at the University of Cambridge, she is usually known in academic circles as Sylvana Tomaselli.^[2]

Duke of Kent family arms

Early life

Tomaselli was born in 1957 at Placentia, Newfoundland, daughter of Maximilian Karl Tomaselli (formerly of Salzburg) by his wife Josiane née Preschez. She was educated in Canada and England.

Marriages and family

Lady St Andrews married first, on 25 December 1977 at Vancouver, John Paul Jones, son of Captain Geoffrey Jones of Barbados, but they divorced in 1981 without children. She married second, on 9 January 1988 at Leith in Scotland, George, Earl of St Andrews^[3] and they have three children:

• Edward Windsor, Lord Downpatrick
• Lady Marina Charlotte Windsor
• Lady Amelia Windsor

Brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, Lady St Andrews' reluctance to renounce her adherence to that denomination precludes her husband's right to ascend the throne by the Act of Settlement (1701). Two of her children, Edward (2003) and Marina (2008), were received into the Catholic Church thereby surrendering their places in the line of succession to the thrones of the Commonwealth realms, although Lord and Lady St Andrews' younger daughter, Amelia, is still in remainder to the British Crown.^[4]

Academic career

Tomaselli, who has received BA (UBC), MA (York, Ontario) and MA (Cantab) degrees, became a Fellow of St John's College Cambridge in 2004.^[5] She specialises in French and British political theory in the 18th century, especially the history of womanhood, and has written about John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. She is the translator of Book II of the Seminar of Jacques Lacan, The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis. She teaches the three History of Political Theory Papers and is an affiliated Lecturer of the Faculties of History as well as of Social and Political Sciences.^[6]

She is a founding member of the European Centre for the Philosophy of Gender, Siegen, Germany^[7] and is currently Director of Studies in History Part I and Social & Political Sciences at St John's College in the University of Cambridge.^[8] She also acts as a pastoral tutor for students of Natural Sciences at St John's College.

Lady St Andrews has been elected a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Historical Society.^[9]

Formal styles from birth

• Miss Sylvana Palma Tomaselli (1957–1977)
• Mrs John Paul Jones (1977-1981)
• Mrs Sylvana Jones (1981–1988)
• The Countess of St Andrews (1988–present)

Lady St Andrews prefers to be styled professionally as Miss Sylvana Tomaselli.

Preceded by Countess of Ulster	United Kingdom Order of Precedence	Succeeded by Lady Davina Lewis

References