Lady Louise Windsor
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Her Royal Highness Princess Louise of Wessex (Louise Alice Elizabeth Mary Mountbatten-Windsor) (born 8 November 2003), styled The Lady Louise Windsor, is a member of the British Royal Family. She is the daughter of The Earl of Wessex, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II.
As a granddaughter of the Monarch in the male line, she is technically Her Royal Highness Princess Louise of Wessex. However, upon her parents' marriage they decided that their children could be styled as Earl's children rather than Prince or Princess with the style 'Royal Highness'. This was so they could avoid the full burden of Royal titles and the responsiblity that comes with them.
The Lady Louise is eighth in line to the British throne.
Birth
The Lady Louise was born on 8 November 2003 at Frimley Park Hospital, Surrey. Her father is The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II and The Duke of Edinburgh. Her mother is The Countess of Wessex (née Sophie Rhys-Jones). She was born by emergency Caesarian section, necessitated by a placental abruption causing severe blood loss to both child and mother, before her due date in December.
The Countess of Wessex had earlier had an ectopic pregnancy.
Style and Title
Under letters patent issued in 1917, all children of male children of the monarch receive the style 'Royal Highness' and the title 'Prince or Princess of the United Kingdom'. In the 1990s, to remove some public criticism about the size of the Royal Family (where minor royals such as Prince Michael of Kent, a male-line grandson of King George V, have received continuous media attention and criticism) one option considered by the Way Ahead committee on which among others the Duke of Edinburgh sat, was to restrict such titles and styles to only the most senior figures, namely the monarch's children and the children of the heir to the throne. It was suggested that other children should be treated not as descendants of a monarch but as the children of a peer, given that princes traditionally receive peerages when they marry.
| Preceded by: HRH The Earl of Wessex | Line of Succession to the British throne | Succeeded by: HRH The Princess Royal |
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