Member of the British Royal Family, great grandson of King George V
Lord Nicholas Charles Edward Jonathan Windsor (born 25 July 1970) is a relative of the British royal family, youngest child of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent. As a Catholic convert, he has forfeited his right of succession to the throne. Lord Nicholas has voiced strong anti-abortion views.
Early years
Lord Nicholas Windsor was born on 25 July 1970 at King's College Hospital in Denmark Hill, London, to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Katharine, Duchess of Kent. He has an older brother, Lord St Andrews, and a sister, Lady Helen Taylor. He was baptised later that year at Windsor Castle. His godparents included Charles, Prince of Wales (later King Charles III), and Donald Coggan, at the time Archbishop of York and later Archbishop of Canterbury.[1]
Religion
Lord Nicholas's mother, the Duchess of Kent, had been received into the Catholic Church in 1994.[2]
On 14 July 2011, Lord Nicholas became an Honorary Vice-president of the Friends of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, an Anglican Ordinariate within the Catholic Church.[3]
Lord Nicholas is also a patron of the Society of King Charles the Martyr and, though it is a largely Anglican society, he identifies it with his catholic faith.[4] In a passage written by Windsor for the Society's website, he extolls Charles's virtues: "In the King's personal piety, devotion and support of the Church, his ecumenical understanding (far advanced for his day), his patronage of the Arts in the service of God, his inspiration of the Christian classic, Eikon Basilike and of course his martyrdom, we have much to REMEMBER and be thankful for."[4]
Lord Nicholas has voiced strong views on the issue of abortion, which he has stated is, as a societal threat, "worse than al-Qaeda".[5]
Marriage and family
Lord Nicholas met his future wife, Paola Doimi de Lupis Frankopan Šubić Zrinski,[6] at a party in New York City in 1999 to mark the Millennium.[6][7] He became engaged to her in July 2006. Following a civil ceremony on 19 October 2006 in a London register office,[6] the couple had a religious marriage on 4 November 2006 in the Church of St Stephen of the Abyssinians in the Vatican and by the marriage the bride became Lady Nicholas Windsor. As required by the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Queen consented to the marriage.[8] A House of Commons Early Day Motion welcomed "the first overt marriage within the rites of the Catholic Church of a member of the Royal Family since the reign of Queen Mary I, and the first marriage of a member of the Royal Family to take place within the Vatican City State".[9]
Lord and Lady Nicholas have three sons. Their first child, Albert Louis Philip Edward Windsor, is the first Windsor to carry the name Albert since King George VI. An Early Day Motion in the House of Commons welcomed the baptism of Albert as the first royal child to be baptised a Catholic since 1688.[10]
