Writing in the Daily Mail, Richard Eden states that the Princess of Wales’s sister and her financier husband had their youngest child baptised this week, with the baby’s royal aunt and uncle present. A source told Eden: ‘Prince William and Catherine both attended the service.’
With two older siblings (Arthur, four and Grace, one) and her royal cousins (Prince George, nine, Princess Charlotte, seven, and Prince Louis, four), Rose is Carole and Michael Middleton’s sixth grandchild.
Berkshire holds a special place in the hearts of the Middleton family: it is there that Kate and Pippa were born, in 1982 and 1983 respectively. The family spent a period in Amman, Jordan, where they moved in 1984, while Michael Middleton was working for British Airways. They returned to West Berkshire in 1986, where youngest sibling James was born the following year. Michael and Carole then moved to Oak Acre, their elegant manor house in Bucklebury, Berkshire, in 2012. Both Pippa and James Middleton have stayed close to the family nest by purchasing their own country homes in the South East England county.
Pippa has recently returned from a half term trip to St Barts with her family of five. James Matthews’ parents, David and Jane Matthews, moved to the French-speaking Caribbean island in 1995, after purchasing the Eden Rock hotel – an A-list hotspot frequented by the likes of Greta Garbo, Princess Lee Radziwill, Sir Elton John and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Since their return from tropical paradise, Pippa and James have been in the headlines amid reports surrounding planned building works at their Berkshire home. The couple are seeking to build a swimming pool and tennis court in the grounds of the property, but the makeover is said to be facing pushback from the council’s ecologist due to concerns about local wildlife, including ‘roosting bats’ and ‘great crested newts’.
