Royal weddings and grandchildren throughout the years
Princess Anne, second child, only daughter, may have been very like her mother when it came to a love of horses. But unlike her mother, when Anne’s serious courting began, she dodged the media by being smuggled around in horse boxes and laying a false trail of beaux.
It was to be fellow equestrian Captain Mark Phillips who captured the young royal heart and that first Westminster Abbey wedding in 1973 as the Queen saw her daughter married, was a significant first in her family life.
It was of course the Phillipses (he took no royal title, nor did their children) who gave the Queen and the Duke their first grandchildren – Zara and Peter.
Then in 1981 came the marriage which was eventually to rock the Monarchy, that of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer – who became Diana, Princess of Wales, and captured public hearts.
Not only did the heir to the throne split from his wife, dashing the hopes which had been so high on that wedding day in St Paul’s Cathedral, but the manner of it, the subsequent revelations on both sides and the tabloid bonanza which was to last for years, was probably the most serious and difficult spell the Queen had to ride through all of her reign.
The couple did produce the ‘heir and spare’ and their two fine boys – especially Prince William – won pop star status as they grew up.
Andrew’s marriage to Sarah Ferguson was not to last either, though having produced two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.
In 1999, it was the turn of the youngest son, Edward, to marry. His choice was PR girl Sophie Rhys-Jones whom he had met at a real tennis tournament.
Against the family trend, their wedding was at Windsor on a Saturday afternoon and after several disappointments and the sad loss of one baby, their daughter Louise was born in 2003.
As with the Queen’s own family, there is a big age gap between the eldest and the youngest of her grandchildren, but they were all a great joy to her, and in the latter years of her reign especially, often an enormous comfort.
There is a lot of evidence that in her older age, despite seemingly as busy as ever, Elizabeth II had relaxed much more and looked to her grandchildren for companionship and for help in keeping up with the modern world. They in turn adored her.
