The Queen's Legacy Growing Up Royal

Her Majesty's Family Has Learnt a Lot From Her Example

- Judy Kean

The decision of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, to add to their “pigeon pair” and have three children is bucking a recent royal trend.

William’s generation is dominated by two-child families – there’s him and Prince Harry; Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall; Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie; and Lady Louise and James, Viscount Severn. Going back a little further, the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret opted for just two kids – David, Viscount Linley, and Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones – and of course, the Queen and Margaret had no other siblings.

But it is the Queen herself who was the last royal to have more than two children. She had four – Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward – but because of the large age gap between her first two and the second pair, at times it was almost as if she had two families of two children.

Her Majesty had always talked about having a lot of children, and before her parents George VI and Queen Elizabeth capped their family at her and Margaret, most royals had lots of offspring – often because child mortality rates were high. Queen Victoria set the bar high with nine children, then her son Edward VII had six and his son George V had seven.

The Queen and Prince Philip might have had more, or at least had them closer together, if George VI hadn’t died when he did and made Elizabeth the monarch at just 25.