Lady Louise Windsor turns 23 today, and the youngest granddaughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II is marking the milestone as one of the royal family’s most low-key members, with a life she is steering well away from full-time duty.
Born on 8 November 2003, Louise is the elder child of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, Prince Edward and Sophie. For all her closeness to the throne, she has grown up almost entirely out of the spotlight.
That is no accident. When Edward and Sophie married, the late Queen agreed that their children would be styled as the son and daughter of an earl rather than as prince and princess, which is why she is Lady Louise and not Princess Louise.
She is entitled to the style of Her Royal Highness, but her parents chose not to use it for her, and at 23 there is no sign she means to take it up.
Raised to work for a living
That choice set the tone for much of what followed. Sophie has spoken openly about wanting her children to earn their own way, saying they are “likely to have to work for a living” and that she has to let her daughter “live her life”.
Louise has taken the idea to heart. She has stacked shelves at a Surrey garden centre for the minimum wage, worked shifts in a university canteen and taken paid work at the Royal Windsor Horse Show.
She has graduated from the University of St Andrews, the Scottish university where the Prince and Princess of Wales first met, with a degree in English. She is now said to be weighing a career in law, diplomacy or the armed forces rather than a diary of royal engagements.
Royal watchers expect her to follow cousins such as Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips, who built careers of their own while staying close to the family. “I don’t ever envisage Louise being a full-time working royal, or even a part-time working royal,” the royal editor Joe Little has said.
A face the south coast has seen before
Readers of Portsmouth And on this stretch of coast may already have crossed paths with her. In September 2020 Louise joined volunteers for the Great British Beach Clean on the beach at Southsea, clearing litter from the shingle alongside her mother.
Two years before that she had been just across the water at Haslar Marina in Gosport with the Duchess. Her late grandfather, Prince Philip, served in the Royal Navy, and the Solent and Portsmouth’s dockyard were part of that world.
Her closest tie to Prince Philip, though, is a hobby. Louise took up carriage driving, the sport he championed in Britain, and has competed at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, once leading the carriages at a society meet and later placing third in a singles class.
For now the birthday will almost certainly be a quiet one, in keeping with a young woman who has never traded on her title. Anyone who follows the family through our latest royal and UK news will know the pattern well by now.
At 23, Lady Louise Windsor looks set to carry on much as she has started, close to the crown and quietly making her own way.
