The King and the Princess of Wales’s respective cancer diagnoses has seen other senior members of the royal family increase their public engagements to support the monarchy at a difficult time.
Many royal fans have often questioned why the Prince of Wales’s cousins do not carry out duties, particularly at a time when there is pressure on a smaller contingent of working royals.
Princess Eugenie’s outing to support the Elephant Family charity in March sparked her Instagram followers to share comments like “HRH would make a wonderful working royal. Very much so needed” and “We need you and HRH Princess Beatrice as working royals!”
However, there’s a logical explanation as to why William’s cousins, Peter Phillips, Zara Tindall, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie do not carry out royal duties.
Each one has carved out their own career and have full-time jobs, with Zara even speaking about the positives of her mother, the Princess Royal, not giving her and brother Peter royal titles from birth.
Speaking on Seven: Rob Burrow, The Total Sport Podcast last December, she said: “From my point of view, I was obviously very lucky that my mother didn’t give us any titles so I really commend her on that. We were very lucky that we got to do it a bit our own way.”
Zara has followed in Princess Anne’s footsteps as a successful equestrian, winning a silver medal as part of Team GB’s eventing team at the London 2012 Olympics. She was also won the Eventing World Championship in Aachen in 2006 and the same year, was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year by the public.
Princess Anne presented Zara with her silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics
The mum-of-three juggles her sporting career with family life, recently taking part in the Thoresby Eventing Spring Carnival over Easter.
Meanwhile, Zara’s brother Peter is head of partner acquisition for the sports and entertainment rights agency CSM Sport & Entertainment as well as event director of the Festival of British Eventing. Before that, the father-of-two was a managing director at sports and entertainment agency, SEL UK. He previously worked for Jaguar as a corporate hospitality manager and then for the Williams racing team.
Peter works in sports and entertainment management
Princess Beatrice regularly travels around the world in her full-time role as Vice President of Partnerships and Strategy at US tech company Afiniti.
And Princess Eugenie recently took a trip to Hong Kong in her capacity as director for art gallery Hauser & Wirth.
Beatrice and Eugenie have carved out their own careers in the tech and art industries respectively
Prince William’s youngest cousins, Lady Louise Windsor, 20, and James, Earl of Wessex, 16, are still in education. Lady Louise is studying English at St Andrews while James will sit his GCSEs in the coming months.
Their mother, the Duchess of Edinburgh, previously said of her children’s futures in a 2020 interview with The Sunday Times: “We try to bring them up with the understanding they are very likely to have to work for a living.”
James, Earl of Wessex and Lady Louise Windsor are still in education
The late Queen Elizabeth II had the support of her first cousins, Prince Michael of Kent, Princess Alexandra, the Duke of Kent and the Duke of Gloucester, during her reign but some also had previous careers before turning to full-time royal duties.
The Duke of Gloucester was a practising partner at an architecture firm until 1972 when he became the heir apparent to his father’s dukedom following the death of his elder brother, Prince William. He gave up his architectural career to take on additional family obligations and royal duties on behalf of his cousin, Queen Elizabeth II.
And up until 2002, the then Earl and Countess of Wessex had their own full-time careers, with Prince Edward running his own production company, Ardent Productions, and Sophie in charge of her PR firm.
Therefore, there is a possibility that in future we could see the likes of Beatrice, Eugenie, Peter and Zara take on more responsibilities to support William when he becomes King.
