Sophie Wessex has revealed her and Prince Edward’s two children will not take up official royal roles and are being raised with the understanding that they’ll probably have to work for a living.
The Countess, 55, told The Sunday Times Magazine it is ‘highly unlikely’ Lady Louise Windsor, 16, and James, Viscount Severn will use their HRH titles when they turn 18.
‘We try to bring them up with the understanding that they are very likely to have to work for a living,’ she said.
‘Hence we made the decision not to use HRH titles. They have them and can decide to use them from 18, but I think it’s highly unlikely.’
Sophie Wessex has revealed her and Prince Edward’s two children will not take up official royal roles and are being raised with the understanding that it’s very likely they will have to work for a living. Pictured: the family during a visit to The Wild Place Project at Bristol Zoo in July 2019
The mother-of-two added that they try to ensure their children have a ‘normal’ life and go to a ‘regular school’ and go to friends’ houses for ‘sleepovers and parties’.
Pre-lockdown at the weekends, Sophie said the family does ‘lots of dog walking and stay with friends’.
She added: ‘I guess not everyone’s grandparents live in a castle, but where you are going is not the important part, or who they are. When they are with the Queen, she is their grandmother.’
Sophie told how her husband is ‘very engaged’ as a father and is ‘good at barbecues’ – which the children love. He takes their son fishing and does a lot of horse riding with their daughter.
The Countess, 55, pictured at the Commonwealth Day Service in March, said it is ‘highly unlikely’ Lady Louise Windsor, 16, and James, Viscount Severn will use their HRH titles when they turn 18
The Countess also revealed that she hopes Lady Louise will go to university, because she’s ‘quite clever’.
Before the schools closed, the teenager was working towards her GCSE exams. Sophie said: ‘She’s working hard and will do A-levels. I hope she goes to university.
‘I wouldn’t force her, but if she wants to. She’s quite clever, so I think probably, whereas James I don’t know.’
Lady Louise was born a month prematurely, weighing just 4lb 9oz, with the eye condition esotropia, and has had operations to improve her sight.
Sophie told how she had corrective surgery for a ‘severe squint’, and ‘it’s still not perfect – but none of us are’.
Sophie said she hopes Lady Louise will go to university, because she’s ‘quite clever’, but doesn’t know about James. She added that Prince Edward is ‘very engaged’ as a father. Pictured: the family at Sandringham on Christmas Day last year
She admitted the traumatic birth, during which she lost nine pints of blood, was ‘very scary’. When Sophie opened the neonatal ward at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey in 2014, she broke down in tears when she met the midwives who saved her life.
‘For the first 10 years after [Louise] was born, I found it very hard to go to prem wards. It brought the whole thing back, but I’ve learnt to cope,’ she said.
Sophie also spoke of her ‘frustration’ while adjusting to life as a working member of the Royal Family, admitting it took her a while to ‘find her feet’.
She said she had to reduce her expectations of what she could actually do and ‘take a really big step back’.
‘I couldn’t turn up at a charity and go, right, I think you should be doing this, because that’s what I was used to doing in my working life,’ she said.
When Sophie opened the neonatal ward at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey in 2014, she broke down in tears when she met the midwives who saved her life. Pictured on a visit to the Special Newborn Care Unit at Niloufer Hospital in central Hyderabad, India in April 2019
‘I had to take a really big step back and go, OK, they want you to be the icing on the cake, the person to come in to thank their volunteers and funders, not necessarily to tell them how to run their communications plan.’
Asked if she would be taking on more royal duties following the departure of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, after they quit as senior members of the Firm earlier this year and moved to the US, Sophie admitted that she is already ‘pretty busy’.
‘People may pay more attention to what I am doing, but I remain as busy as I have ever been,’ she said, adding that she hopes the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ‘will be happy’.
In recent weeks, the Wessexes have opened the NHS Nightingale Hospitals via video link, while Sophie has shared home schooling tips with parents via Instagram to help boost morale.
The couple have also volunteered with local charities to help pack food parcels for the vulnerable during the pandemic.