Lady Louise Windsor attends University of St Andrews, where Prince William and Princess Kate met, and used to carry out a £6.83-an-hour job at a garden centre in Surrey
Prince Edward and his family are expected to be shooting at Windsor this weekend.
It’s a 60th birthday present from King Charles to Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, but her daughter may well be the person who enjoys the experience the most.
After all, it is said Lady Louise Windsor, aged 21, is a crack shot with a gun. The young royal hopes to join the military when she leaves University of St Andrews, the oldest of the four ancient universities in Scotland. If she becomes an Army officer, she will be the first female royal to serve in the Armed Forces since the late Queen, who was a Junior Commander with the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945.
But Lady Louise is determined to keep her feet on the ground, it is said. According to insiders, she works at the campus canteen of university where Prince William and Princess Kate met in 2001.
In fact, Lady Louise is so down-to-earth that she refused to use her title, HRH Princess Louise, when she turned 18. She then took a £6.83-an-hour job at a garden centre in Surrey before she left for university.
When she turned 21 last year, Lady Louise was snapped dancing with boyfriend Felix da Silva-Clamp, whom it is believed she has been dating for some time. It is understood he works part-time at an ice cream parlour in St Andrews while undertaking his studies.
Speaking previously, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, said she felt both Lady Louise and son James, Earl of Wessex, would “highly unlikely” adopt their HRH titles once they reached 18. James turns 18 later this year but Sophie’s hunch about her daughter came true.
“We try to bring them up with the understanding they are very likely to have to work for a living. Hence we made the decision not to use the HRH titles. They have them and can decide to use them from 18, but I think it’s highly unlikely,” Sophie had said.
It’s said Lady Louise was the favourite grandchild of Prince Philip and the Queen. In fact, as a little girl she once returned home from St George’s School in Windsor and told Sophie: “People keep telling me that Granny is the Queen.”
But the life of Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor has been normal ever since the day she was born — the first royal ever to come into the world in an NHS hospital.
Prince Edward was away on a royal tour of Mauritius when Sophie went into labour four weeks early, in November 2003. Aged 38, she was due to have her first child at the private Portland Hospital in London. But Sophie, who had been airlifted to hospital with an ectopic pregnancy two years earlier, collapsed with severe stomach pains at Bagshot Park, the couple’s £30million home in Surrey.
She was taken by ambulance to Frimley Park Hospital, Camberley, under armed guard, where her daughter was delivered in a three-hour emergency Caesarean section.