{"id":300174,"date":"2025-07-29T03:38:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/300174\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T03:38:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T03:38:14","slug":"is-this-why-king-charles-now-royal-sister-in-law-missed-princess-dianas-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/300174\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this why King Charles’ now-royal sister-in-law missed Princess Diana’s funeral?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 28 years ago, the British royal family gathered at Princess Diana<\/strong>‘s funeral. While\u00a0Sophie Rhys-Jones<\/strong> was dating Queen Elizabeth<\/strong> and Prince Philip<\/strong>‘s son Prince Edward<\/strong> at the time, she was not at the service held at Westminster Abbey on Sept. 6, 1997. A new biography by\u00a0Sean Smith<\/strong> titled Sophie: Saving the Royal Family<\/a> claims that\u00a0King Charles<\/strong>‘ now-sister-in-law, the Duchess of Edinburgh, was not in attendance because she thought it would be “too upsetting for the crowd” due to her resemblance to the late Princess.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Prince\u00a9 Jayne Fincher\/Getty ImagesPrince Edward pictured leaving Westminster Abbey after Princess Diana’s funeral service in 1997 <\/p>\n

“She had an obvious and reasonable excuse: a friend at the Palace explained, ‘Sophie decided it would be too upsetting for the crowd if she went,'” Smith wrote in the book, according to the Daily Mail<\/a>. “She’s well aware that she looks like Princess Diana from a distance and made her decision in a caring and thoughtful way. The Royal Family fully supported.”<\/p>\n

Sophie has reportedly acknowledged the resemblance between herself and Diana in the past. Per Sky News Australia<\/a>, Sophie told the Daily Mail in the 90s, \u201cI don\u2019t deny that we do look alike. But I couldn’t ever compete with Diana\u2019s image. I\u2019m not Diana.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sophie\u00a9 Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images\/ Ken Goff\/Getty ImagesSophie (left); Diana (right)<\/p>\n

The royal family’s website notes that Sophie met Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s youngest child Edward in the summer of 1993<\/a> at a Real Tennis event. Less than two years after Diana’s funeral, Sophie and Edward announced their engagement in January of 1999. Asked how she felt about joining the royal family at the time, Sophie admitted<\/a>: “It is slightly nerve-wracking \u00a0in many ways but I am ready for it now.” The couple went on to tie the knot at St. George’s Chapel on June 19, 1999.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Upon her marriage, Sophie became the Countess of Wessex. On her husband’s 59th birthday in 2023, it was announced King Charles had conferred the Dukedom of Edinburgh upon his youngest brother,<\/a> with Sophie becoming the Duchess of Edinburgh. The Duke and Duchess have two children: Lady<\/strong> Louise<\/strong>, 21,\u00a0<\/strong>and the\u00a0Earl of Wessex<\/strong>, 17.<\/p>\n

\"Sophie\u00a9 OLI SCARFF\/AFP via Getty ImagesSophie married into the royal family in 1999<\/p>\n

Sophie has been called the royal family’s “secret weapon,” a label she spoke about during an interview with the Mirror<\/a>, published in July 2025. “I like to fly under the radar. It\u2019s all very well being a secret weapon but if no one knows, maybe it’s too secret,” the Duchess told the Mirror.<\/p>\n

She then added, “I suppose I should take it as a backhanded compliment. I don\u2019t see myself in a frontline position per se, that said admittedly there are fewer working members of the family these days so I suppose more and more I’m becoming less secretive. I just wonder what they are going to describe me as next!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 28 years ago, the British royal family gathered at Princess Diana‘s funeral. While\u00a0Sophie Rhys-Jones was dating Queen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,13080,7730,7731,1760,1412,7710,519,448,76879],"class_list":{"0":"post-300174","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-british-royals","10":"tag-charles","11":"tag-charles-iii","12":"tag-king-charles","13":"tag-princess-diana","14":"tag-royal-families","15":"tag-royal-family","16":"tag-royals","17":"tag-sophie-wessex"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114934441909507518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300174","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=300174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}