Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, celebrates her 61st birthday today. The bright and bubbly wife of Prince Edward—the late Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest son—has cemented herself as a key figure within the royal family, and has become an “invaluable mentor” to Princess Kate over the years.
Speaking to OK!, former BBC Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond said, “I'm sure it's been a comfort for the princess to know that Sophie was on hand during the last difficult couple of years.” Sophie Rhys-Jones married Prince Edward in 1999, so she had a head-start on royal life before welcoming Princess Kate into the family in 2011. "Life has thrown these two women together quite randomly, and landed them on what must have seemed like an alien planet at first," Bond said recently. "The rest of us can only imagine what it must be like to find yourself suddenly inside palace walls."
