King Charles’ niece, Lady Louise Windsor, is to become the first female British Royal to serve in the military since the late Queen Elizabeth II. Lady Louise, the daughter of the King’s youngest brother Prince Edward, has reportedly “fallen in love” with service life and hopes to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who served in the army during the Second World War.
According to biographers, the Royal family were determined not to hide from the war and to join the British people in fighting against the Nazis. The late Queen, then Princess Elizabeth, signed up for service against the wishes of her father, King George VI. She became the first female member of the Royal family to serve in the military full-time.
Lady Louise is studying at the prestigious St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, where several other family members, including the future King Prince William, have obtained their degrees. The Prince graduated from St. Andrew’s in 2005 and immediately joined the army, training at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for 44 weeks and joining the Household Cavalry (Blues and Royals) as a second lieutenant. His brother, Prince Harry, also served and spent ten years in the British Army, including two deployments to Afghanistan.
In his controversial autobiography, Spare, Prince Harry claimed he had killed 25 enemy soldiers during his deployment, sparking controversy in Britain and prompting senior military figures to issue a rebuke and warn the Prince that soldiers don’t talk about such things in public.
Prince Harry wrote that the 9/11 attacks on the United States prompted him to volunteer for deployment. He described 9/11 as “one of the most heinous crimes in world history.”
Military service is not uncommon for the British Royal family, and Harry is not the only one to engage in active combat. The King’s brother, Prince Andrew, fought on the front line of Britain’s war with Argentina in the 1980s. Biographers describe him as a heroic fighter and skilled helicopter pilot. Nevertheless, Andrew was stripped of several of his Royal titles amid claims that he sexually abused trafficked women alongside notorious financier Jeffrey Epstein.
