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Ira Mira, Princess Gesene Doria Pamphilj & her husband, Massimiliano Floridi, and Lady Nicholas Windsor at Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome March 2025 @ira mira Instagram |
Earlier tonight, a friend and I talked about different members of the Royal Family. He mentioned Lady Nicholas Windsor (Paola Frankopan) and said she had not attended royal events in the final years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign.
Lady Nicholas did not accompany her husband to Lady Gabriella Windsor's wedding in 2019 (Nicholas came with one of his sons), the Platinum Jubilee events in June 2022, or Queen Elizabeth's funeral in September 2022.
In the first few years of their marriage, they attended Ascot, the Trooping of the Colour, and other family events. In 2012, they attended Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Thanksgiving Service; four years later, they were among the guests at the Thanksgiving Service for the Queen's 90th birthday. Their last appearance at the Trooping of the Colour was in 2017.
According to several sources, Lord Nicholas was a guest at King Charles III's Coronation, as he was included in the Court Circular and the official Coronation Roll.
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| Court Circular May 6, 2023 |
His wife and the spouses of children and grandchildren of the Dukes of Gloucester and Kent, Prince Michael of Kent, and Princess Alexandra, the Hon. Lady Ogilvy, were not invited.
The following year, they were at Stephen Hawking's memorial service.
Lord Nicholas Windsor, a godson of King Charles III, is the youngest of three children of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, and Katharine Worsley.
He was born in July 1970 at King's College Hospital, the first British royal born in a hospital. In 1981, Nicholas was one of two pages at Charles's wedding to Lady Diana Spencer.
As a teenager, Lord Nicholas was a bit rebellious. When he was 18 years old, he was found in possession of a small amount of cannabis. He and his friend were taken to the Bow Street police station, where they were "let off with a caution." A spokesman for the Duke of Kent released a statement to the press: "I can confirm that the facts are true and that Lord Nicholas was arrested for possessing drugs. He is staying with his family for the weekend.
It is not unusual for a person who is found with only a small amount of cannabis in their possession to be cautioned. This is the normal course of events."
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman denied that Lord Nicholas was "treated leniently simply because "he is a member of the Royal Family. Two years earlier, Lord Nicholas switched to Harrow for his A Levels after doing his O Levels at Westminster School. One family friend told the Daily Express: "Nicholas, being the youngest, is a bit spoilt. His mother absolutely dotes on him. He's the sort of chap who might go around boasting, 'I'm Lord Nicholas,' and be bullied. It wouldn't surprise me if that was why he asked to move."
He studied theology and philosophy at Manchester College, Oxford. In September 1999, the Daily Mirror reported exclusively that Lord Nicholas had been "battling an eating disorder and depression" for six years and had been hospitalized several times. Biographer Kenneth Rose, a family friend, said: "I understand he has had some sort of relapse, but he seems to be fighting it. He's been suffering from eating disorders and depression for about six years now. I know his mother has a history of the two, maybe it's passed down."
At the time, Nicholas was living in a £250,000 townhouse in Pimlico and volunteering unpaid for charities in London and Oxford. Three months later, he was in New York City, attending a New Year's Eve Party, where he met British-born Paola de Frankopan, a Roman Catholic with Croatian and Swedish ancestry.
Nicholas, 54, converted to Roman Catholicism seven years after his mother became Catholic. The news broke on August 18, 2001, when he told the Times. "I can confirm that it is true, but I would prefer to say no more than that. I consider the time and place to be a private matter." It is understood that Lord Nicholas was received into the Catholic church on Easter Sunday in 2001.
Two years later, Nigel Dempster reported Nicholas was spotted canoodling in the stacks at the Chelsea Public Library. "He was all over a beautiful young lady," described as an "elegant blonde."
"They were reading magazines, but they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Everyone could see them with their arms round each other," said one library patron.
Nicholas' cell phone rang, and he went outside to take the call, but he quickly returned, and the "cuddling continued." The blonde was described as a "lovely Sloane-type, clad in a fluffy cream jumper, jeans and pointed black suede shoes." Several hours later, Dempster confronted Lord Nicholas at his Pimlico home.
"I'm sorry, I cannot talk about my private life," Lord Nicholas told the veteran society columnist, who noted in his article that Nicholas had a "long-time girlfriend called Paula, although she is a brunette."
Paula .... Paola... what is in a name? Nigel Dempster might have been confused about Nicholas' girlfriend's hair color and name.
His engagement to Paola de Doimi de Frankopan was announced in September 2006. The couple had met five years earlier at a party in New York City. Paola described their first meeting in an article she wrote in 2013 for Vogue. "I met my future husband there [NYC] at a New Year's Eve party in 1999, in an apartment overlooking the Met, from which we could see the damp squibs of fireworks set off above a rainy Central Park....Both of us avoid New Year's Eve parties in general and had come reluctantly, but thank God we did! It was when Nicholas decided to call it quits before midnight -- on Millennium Eve -- that my interest was piqued by such independence of spirit, a quality I later learned is central to his character."
Paola Louise Marica Doimi de Lupis was born in London in August 1969, the daughter of Croatian-born Louis Doimi de Lupis and Ingrid Detter, a Swedish lawyer. Some years later, Louis adopted the title of Prince Louis Nicholas Anthony Doimi de Frankopan Subic, claiming to be of Croatian nobility. Croatian nobility experts have disputed this.
She attended St. Paul's School and Wycombe Abbey before attending Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she studied Classics. She also attended the Sorbonne, where she received a master's in philosophy.
They were married in a civil ceremony on October 19, 2006, in London, as their wedding on November 4, 2006, at the Church of St Stephen of the Abyssinians in Vatican City was not a legal ceremony. The night before their religious wedding, Nicholas and Paola hosted a dinner at the 15th-century Palazzo Taverno, once the home of the Borgia and Orsini families. Their wedding reception was held at the 15th-century Palazzo Doria Pamphili, where one guest told Hello magazine: "the party dined by candlelight in magnificent state rooms surrounded by priceless works of art, enjoying Parma ham with mozzarella, grilled sliced beef and chocolate mousse."
The morning after the wedding, Paola wrote in Vogue: "We had a brunch on a roof terrace—a setting haunted by stars of Cinecitta—with a breathtaking view of the Forum."
Her dress was from Valentino. Paola "embraced the Roman patrician Catholic tradition that brides do not wear any jewelry on their wedding day: tiaras, no earrings, not even an engagement ring. You are naked of these fineries as you go to your destiny. I love the idea of such stark simplicity and surrender."
A source close to the newlyweds told Hello: "They are clearly very in love and they will take note of the fact that the Pope in his dedication dedicated them to the Virgin Mary, The Queen of the Family."
The couple has three sons: Albert Louis Philip Edward (2007), Leopold Ernest Augustus Guelph (2009), and Louis Arthur Nicholas Felix (2014).
The three young men were baptized in the Roman Catholic faith.
In the January 2011 issue of Tatler, Paola wrote about her appreciation for late fashion designer Catherine Walker.. By 2010, the family lived in Italy "in rural Umbria, as far from the maddening crowd as is possible and still be in Europe."
Lord and Lady Nicholas returned to the United Kingdom for Pope Benedict XVI's visit in September 2010. They met him at Holyrood Palace and again in Birmingham.
That same year, Lord Nicholas claimed that "abortion was a bigger threat to Europe than al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorism."
Lord and Lady Nicholas and their three sons are now based in Rome, where Paola is involved in the art scene.
In 2020, Lady Nicholas wrote two articles about life in Rome during COVID-19. The articles were published in the Catholic Herald with Paola Frankopan's byline. Lord Nicholas and his sons are not in the line of succession to the British throne due to their religion. They are in line, however, for the Kent dukedom. Lord Nicholas is 3rd in line after his older brother, George, Earl of St. Andrews, and his only, Edward, Baron Downpatrick. Lord Downpatrick, 36, remains single.
https://www.thecatholicherald.com/rome-diary-how-our-family-is-living-through-lockdown/
https://www.thecatholicherald.com/this-too-shall-pass-italians-know-how-to-confront-a-pandemic/
She uses her maiden name with Romamitca, which describes her as a "founder director, art co-curator and contributor of Roma Mitica. She is a multinational and multilingual poet, painter, photographer, videographer and multimedia artist. She read Classics at Cambridge and has a postgrad in Philosophy from Paris IV, La Sorbonne.
Her work seeks the light in the darkness; the truth dispelling illusion, inversion and projection; the art of nature; the eternal present in fleeting time; what can be saved from decadence and decay; joy after tears; and life beyond death."
https://www.instagram.com/romamitica/p/Cw7z2dGNndN/?img_index=1
Lady Nicholas is the patron of the UK-based International Friends of Ninfa. She and Lord Nicholas are the"royal patrons" of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst. Lord Nicholas remains the patron of the Society of King Charles the Martyr and the Right to Life Trust. In 2016, he resigned as Patron of the National Catholic Library.
https://christianheritagecentre.com/who-we-are/
In October 2024, Lord Nicholas joined his uncle, Prince Michael of Kent, and the Duchess of Kent in a photo shoot for the Duke of Kent's 89th birthday. The Duke will celebrate his 90th birthday this coming October ... perhaps, his entire family, including Nicholas, Paola, and their three sons, Albert, 17, Leopold, 15, and soon-to-be 11-year-old Louis, will be present for the family photo.
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