Caption: The Queen and the Countess also share a fascination with military history. Sophie loves listening to the Queen talk about great historical events, and the pair are sometimes gone for hours, poring over ancient documents in the Royal Archives, which are kept at Windsor Castle
Caption: The excitement of a second child for the Duchess of Cambridge (left) has helped push Sophie (right), also a mother of two, even more to the margins of public life and inevitable scrutiny - which she loves
At a private dinner party shortly before Christmas, guests noticed that one of their number, a female member of the Royal Family, was particularly 'glowing'. She was animated and confident, relaxed and amusing. Consequently she was on everyone's lips at the intimate post-mortems that usually follow such occasions. Why the surprise? Because the royal lady in question, Sophie Wessex
, is usually perceived as earnest, but hardly sparkling.
In addition, the excitement of a second child for the Duchess of Cambridge
has helped push Sophie, also a mother of two, even more to the margins of public life and inevitable scrutiny.Some royal figures might have viewed this as a crisis — but for Sophie, according to a close friend, it was 'positively liberating'.
For Sophie, who got things so badly wrong while still working in public relations when she joined the Royal Family, is these days viewed by the Queen as its safest pair of hands. 'She is trusted and relied on by the Queen in a way I couldn't say applied to the Duchess of Cambridge or the Duchess of Cornwall,' says a royal aide. 'She is like another daughter to Her Majesty, they are that close.' Click link for full post from The Daily Mail.