King Charles delivered a Speech in a historic moment at the State Opening of Parliament on 17 July 2024. But, maybe – another aristocrat stole the show. Dressed in white and wearing a glittering diamond tiara, the Duchess of Wellington sat on one of the benches to watch the historical occasion.
But who is she? Born Antonia Elizabeth Brigid Louise Mansfeld of Prussia, she is a direct ancestor of Queen Victoria through her father, Prince Friedrich of Prussia. And the has been friends with the royal couple for years – no surprise, given she’s from the most prestigious of families too. As well as being related to Queen Victoria, her mother, Lady Brigid Guinness, is the daughter of Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh, known for having launched the ‘Guinness World Records’.
Her parents met during the Second World War, when Lady Brigid was working as a nursing assistant and her future husband was injured in a tractor accident. They married a few years later, on July 30, 1945, in Little Hadham in Hertfordshire, with Prince Friedrich even renouncing his German nationality in order to become a naturalised British citizen under the name von Preussen. However, a certain degree of mystery surrounds the family.
Prince Friedrich disappeared when his daughter, Antonia, was only 10 and found drowned in the Rhine while staying at his Reinhartshausen castle in Erbach, Germany. Was it an accident? Or was it intentional? Nobody knows. After studying at Cobham Hall School, an all-girls p.