Queen Elizabeth ‘Appreciates’ Her Favorite Daughter-in-Law for How She Deals With the Monarch’s ‘Difficult Son,’ Royal Commentator Says
They say marriage isn’t easy, and apparently being married to a prince is pretty tough too. Before that Panorama interview with Princess Diana and autobiography by Sarah Ferguson, some people thought that royal brides just lived the good life.
According to a royal expert, Queen Elizabeth II really appreciates the woman who has stayed married to one of her sons for years even though he is one of the monarch’s “most difficult” children to deal with.
Who is Queen Elizabeth’s favorite daughter-in-law?
There’s no denying that Queen Elizabeth has a very good relationship with her youngest son Prince Edward‘s wife Sophie, Countess of Wessex. It’s thought that the two women have a stronger bond than the queen does with Prince Charles’ wife Camilla Parker Bowles, therefore, Sophie has been dubbed the royal family matriarch’s “favorite daughter-in-law.”
“She is like another daughter to Her Majesty, they are that close,” a senior royal aide previously told The Sun. “She talks to Sophie in the way she used to talk to Princess Margaret. Sophie has filled a terrible gap in the queen’s life that was left when her sister and the Queen Mother died in 2002.”
“[The countess] is probably the best example of an outsider coming into the family and learning on the job,” royal biographer Robert Jobson added via The Telegraph. “She’s very much the queen’s favorite.”
Prince Edward and Sophie’s marriage has lasted and the queen really ‘appreciates’ her
The Earl of Wessex is the only one of Queen Elizabeth’s children who is still currently married to his first spouse and a royal commentator believes that is another thing the monarch appreciates because Edward is one the queen’s “most difficult sons” to deal with. Body language expert Judi James spoke about that during an episode of Pod Save the Queen.
“I think we forget that Sophie is the middle generation — Sophie is the only royal bride of that generation that had any Teflon about her,” James said (per Express). “She is the only one that stuck. Windsor men are notoriously difficult to be married to. But, I think you find with Sophie she’s managed to do it, with perhaps one of the most difficult sons as well.
James added: “I think the queen appreciates that, and I think it’s raised her points in the royal family.”
The Countess of Wessex’s role in the family has been growing more after Meghan and Harry left
Prince Edward and Sophie have been working for years on behalf of the crown but they’ve done so while staying in the background. That all changed after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle stepped down from their royal duties. Sophie and Edward joined the rest of the family picking up the slack and taking over the patronages that once belonged to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
In late 2020, Queen Elizabeth held a gathering outside Windsor Castle to showcase who will be the faces of the royal family once her reign is over. Those who stood outside the royal residence were Prince Charles, Camilla, Princess Anne, Prince Edward, Sophie, Prince William, and Kate Middleton.
