Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, is primed to take on a more prominent position in the royal family once Prince William ascends the throne<\/p>\n
Max Mumby\/Indigo\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
She has been called the royal family’s \u2018secret weapon\u2019, the late Queen Elizabeth’s \u2018favourite daughter-in-law\u2019 and a \u2018savvy peacemaker\u2019 capable of smoothing over frictions within the Firm \u2013 so it’s perhaps no wonder that Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh<\/a>, is seen by her nephew, Prince William<\/a>, as key to his vision for the monarchy when he eventually becomes King.<\/p>\n The Prince’s view, a close friend recently told The Times<\/a>, is that Sophie and her husband, Edward, are \u2018needed\u2019 and \u2018it’s really important that the fantastic work that they do is seen\u2019. It’s said that both William and Kate are big supporters of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, and are already raising their royal profiles. The Waleses reportedly deeply admire the couple’s quiet, dutiful approach to their roles, particularly Sophie’s determined championing of charities that work to combat sexual violence in conflict and support young people.<\/p>\n Sophie and Kate, pictured on Garter Day, share a particularly close bond that one expert described as \u2018sisterly\u2019<\/p>\n Max Mumby\/Indigo\/Getty Images<\/p>\n During Garter Day in early June, Sophie was spotted standing by Kate’s side to watch the procession from Galilee Porch, and the two were seen sharing a laugh and warm conversation as they prepared to watch King Charles, Queen Camilla, Princess Anne<\/a>, Prince William<\/a>, Prince Edward<\/a> and the Gloucesters lead the festivities. Indeed, the bond between the two women seems to have grown stronger since Kate Middleton<\/a> returned to public<\/a>-facing royal duties after undergoing chemotherapy treatment. During Remembrance Sunday in November last year, the pair stood side-by-side for the two-minute silence, which was broadcast live to the nation, and watched on as King Charles led the wreath-laying alongside the Prince of Wales<\/a> and Sir Keir Starmer. But it was in the moments shortly afterwards, when the two exchanged a smile and Sophie placed a reassuring hand onto Kate Middleton’s back, which drew headlines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, is primed to take on a more prominent position in the royal family once…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7714,7713,533,2832,532,2831,7710,519,448,51750,7711,7712],"class_list":{"0":"post-223808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-catherine","10":"tag-catherine-middleton","11":"tag-kate-middleton","12":"tag-prince-of-wales","13":"tag-prince-william","14":"tag-princess-of-wales","15":"tag-royal-families","16":"tag-royal-family","17":"tag-royals","18":"tag-the-countess-of-wessex","19":"tag-uk-royal-family","20":"tag-william"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114766302599152717","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}