For this post, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not the most important persons in this photo. I am drawn to the woman in the white suit, a distant cousin of the Duke of Sussex. She worked for the UK's Foreign Service and was a part of the team that accompanied the royal couple to South Africa.
The woman is Tamara Leigh, the second of six children of Sir Edward Julian Egerton Leigh, KT, and Mary Goodman. Sir Edward is the Conservative MP for Gainsborough, a seat he has held since 1983. He is now the longest-serving Member of Parliament.
Tamara and Harry are distant cousins and do not move in the same social circles. Her aunt, Catherine Goodman, however, is one of King Charles III and Queen Camilla's friends. Their friendship is through art, as Catherine, a noted artist, represented by Hauser & Wirth, and King Charles co-founded the Royal Drawing School. She and Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, the King's first cousin, were roommates at the Camberwell School of Art and later the Royal Academy. This friendship led to an introduction to Charles.
Tamara married Rajiv Shah at the Brompton Oratory in London on November 18, 2023. Their son Gabriel was born in London on September 11, 2024. He was baptized at the Brompton Oratory only weeks before the deaths of his great-grandparents, Philip and Sonia Goodman.
Born in the Seychelles, Shah holds bachelor's and master's degrees and a Ph.D. in law from Cambridge University. He also earned a BS in Mathematics from the University of Warwick. His most recent position was Special Adviser to the Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP in the No 10 Policy Unit. In 2023, the Catholic Herald named Shah and Sir Edward Egerton Leigh in a list of the United Kingdom's leading Catholics.
Sonia Goodman was born Countess Sophia Vladimirovna Kleinmichel in 1930. She was the only child of Countess Marie von Carlow and her second husband, Count Vladimir Petrovich Kleinmichel. Countess Marie was the eldest of four children of HH Duke Georg Alexander of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his morganatic wife, Natalia Feodorovna Vanljarskya.
In the 1930s, Count Vladimir was an advisor to Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia, who lived in Frogmore Cottage, later the home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex before they moved to the United States.
Natalia was a lady-in-waiting to Georg Alexander's mother, Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia, who married Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, second son of Georg, Grand Duke of Mecklenberg-Strelitz and Princess Marie of Hesse-Cassel. Duke Georg Alexander and Grand Duchess Catherine settled in Russia.
The Grand Duchess "loved her husband deeply and selflessly." The same selflessness did not extend to her son Georg Alexander when she learned he was in love with her lady-in-waiting and was determined to marry her. Natalia was dismissed from her position. Georg Alexander and Natalia shared a love of music. His uncle, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, permitted the couple to marry. He bestowed the title, Countess of Carlow, on Natalia, which would also be used by her children.
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| Duke Georg Alexander |
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| Natalia, Countess von Carlow |
Countess Marie von Carlow was born in 1893 in St. Petersburg. In 1919, the Bolsheviks killed her first husband, Prince Boris Dimitrievich Galitzine, in front of her. She and her two young children eventually settled in England. In 1929, she married Count Vladimir Kleimmichel, another noble Russian refugee. Sophie was their only child.
On May 17, 1957, she married Philip Henry Russell Goodman, the son of
Sir Victor Martin Reeves Goodman and his first wife, Julian-Ottoline Morrell. Julian-Ottoline was the only child of Philip Edward Morrell and Lady Ottoline Violet Ann Cavendish-Bentinck.
Lady Ottoline and Cecilia, the Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne (mother of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) were first cousins.
Philip was the son of Sir Victor Martin Reeves Goodman, KCB (1899-1967) and his first wife, Julian-Ottoline Morrell (1906-1989). Julian-Ottoline was the only child of Philip Edward Morrell and Lady Ottoline Violet Ann Cavendish-Bentinck.
On May 15, 1957, at St.Matthew's Church in Kensington, Philip married Countess Sophia (Sonia) Vladimirovna Kleinmichel (1930), daughter of Count Vladimir Petrovich Kleinmichel and Countess Marie Catherine von Carlow.
Tamara and Harry share a descent from Emperor Paul of Russia.
Paul I - Mikhail - Catherine - George Alexander - Marie - Sophia - Mary - Tamara
Paul I -Nicholas I - Konstantin - Olga - Andrew - Philip - Charles - Harry
Tamara and Prince Harry also share other lines of descent, through the third son of the 3rd Duke of Portland (Cavendish-Bentinck) and King Henry VII.
Lord Charles Frederick - Charles - Cecilia -Elizabeth - Elizabeth II - Charles - Harry
Lord Charles Frederick - Arthur - Ottoline - Julian -Philip -Mary - Tamara
Henry VII's lines of descent run through his two daughters, Margaret and Mary Tudor. Sophie is a descendant of Margaret, and Philip has lines of descent from both of Mary's daughters, Frances and Eleanor Brandon. Sophia's German lines of descent are through her great-grandson King James VI & I's granddaughter, Sophie, who married Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and her son, King George I, and daughter, Sophie Charlotte, who married the King of Prussia.
Countess Marie von Carlow's older sister, Countess Catherine, married Prince Vladimir Galitzine. Their eldest son, Nicholas,'s first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Cyril Denzil Branch, was the sister of Denise Branch, who married Sir Neville Egerton Leigh. Sir Neville was Sir Edward Egerton Leigh's father and Tamara's paternal grandfather.
Catherine's grandson, Prince Alexander Galitzine (son of her second son, Prince George), married Rohays Georgina Butter, the third child of Sir David Butter and Myra Wernher. Through her mother, Rohays was also a Romanov. She was the granddaughter of Lady Zia Wernher, daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia. Lady Zia was one of the late Queen's friends.
Tamara and her family are mourning the deaths of her maternal grandparents, Philip and Sonia Goodman, who died within one week of each other.
The couple, who were married for 67 years, are survived by their five daughters, Mary (Lady Leigh), Catherine Goodman, Elizabeth Jones, Sophia Goodman, and Xenia Wiehe; thirteen grandchildren, Natalia Leigh, Tamara Shah, Benedict Leigh, Marina Leigh, Nicholas Leigh, Theodore Leigh, Michael, Augustine and Anastasia Jones, Frederick, Alexander, Charlotte, and Sasha Wiehe; and two great-grandchildren, Sophia Leigh and Gabriel Shah.
Philip and Sonia Goodman lived in London. Sonia was an active member of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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