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Day 1: The Duke of Kent
Day 2: The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester
Day 3: Princess Anne
The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh come across as down-to-earth and dependable members of the House of Windsor who are comfortable in their status as supporting players. That’s not a dig, but rather a compliment. Edward and Sophie have carved out roles that suit themselves, suit the charities and organizations to which they devote much of their time, and suit the palace.
As the third son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Edward was third in line to the throne at his birth in 1964. Now, he’s 15th. From all appearances, they are happily married, 26 years after their nuptials in 1999. They may be working royals but there are no signs that their two children, Louise and James, will follow in their footsteps. In addition, their now-adult have declined to take the royal styles and titles (HRH Prince/ss) they could use as grandchildren of a monarch through a male line, instead opting for their noble titles of Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor and the Earl of Wessex.
In the last few years, Edward and Sophie have become indispensable — they were third and fourth on the year-end list of most engagements. And given their ages of 61 and 60, respectively, their importance will grow as much older royals scale back their own workloads.
Since 2017, Sophie has averaged 220 engagements a year. In the last three years, her workload has been rock steady in a five-engagement range from 235 (2025) to 240 (2023).
A deeper dive into her royal work year reveals her importance to the Crown.
With the King undergoing regular cancer treatments and the Princess of Wales recovering from her own chemotherapy regimen, it’s increasingly fallen to other royals to go on foreign visits. For Sophie, that means travelling to some of the most dangerous areas of the world, either working on behalf of the British government or for her causes, including organizations that help survivors of sexual violence in war zones.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source writeroyalty.substack.com ’
