Princess Beatrice

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Princess Beatrice, a niece of King Charles III, wore an unusual fascinator designed by Philip Treacy to her cousin Prince William's wedding in April 2011. The hat drew significant public and media attention. The following month it was auctioned on eBay for £81,000, and the money went to two charities, UNICEF and Children in Crisis.

  Beatrice is a member of the British royal family and the elder daughter of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson. Her life raises a few questions. What does a princess do when she stands well back from the throne? How does a girl diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of seven end up as a technology executive and a charity patron? And what happens to a royal wedding when a pandemic and a family scandal both get a say?

  9899

• 2. A Royal Childhood

  ›

  At 8:18 pm on the 8th of August 1988, Beatrice was born at the Portland Hospital in London. Her parents were then the Duke and Duchess of York. She was the fifth grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, and she was born fifth in the line of succession to the British throne. Her name was not announced until almost two weeks after the birth.

  On the 20th of December she was baptised in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace. Her godparents included Viscount Linley, her father's cousin, who is now the 2nd Earl of Snowdon. The Duchess of Roxburghe, now Lady Jane Dawnay, was another. Peter Palumbo, now Lord Palumbo, Gabrielle Greenall and Carolyn Cotterell completed the group.

  Her sister, Princess Eugenie, was born in 1990. When Beatrice was seven, her parents divorced amicably and agreed to share custody of the two girls. The Queen then gave the couple £1.4 million to set up a trust fund for her granddaughters. The sisters travelled abroad often, and always with one or both of their parents.

  Beatrice's first classroom was at Upton House School in Windsor, which she entered in 1991.

  23467

• 3. School and Dyslexia

  ›

  Coworth Park School, now called Coworth Flexlands School, was where Beatrice and Eugenie went after Upton House. In 2000 Beatrice moved to St George's School in Ascot, and she stayed there until 2007.

  Dyslexia shaped those years. She was diagnosed at the age of seven, and in 2005 she went public with the diagnosis. Her GCSE exams were delayed by a year as a result. She remained at St George's for her A-Levels and earned an A in drama, a B in history and a B in film studies. In her final year she was elected Head Girl, and she sang in the school choir.

  In July 2006 she celebrated her 18th birthday with a masked ball at Windsor Castle. Count Nikolai von Bismarck photographed her official birthday portrait.

  In September 2008 Beatrice began a three-year course at Goldsmiths, University of London, reading history and history of ideas. She graduated in 2011 with a BA, a 2:1 degree.

  Dyslexia later became a cause as well as a challenge. In April 2013 she became royal patron of the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre, which she credits with helping her overcome the academic difficulties it brought. In April 2022, as an ambassador for Made By Dyslexia, she and her husband took part in the first World Dyslexia Assembly, hosted by Prince Carl Philip of Sweden.

  1213141719

• 4. Working Life

  ›

  Selfridges gave Beatrice her first taste of work in the summer of 2008, when she served as a sales assistant. She also spent a period working unpaid in the Foreign Office's press office. Reports that year said she was interested in a career with the Financial Times website.

  In 2009 she became the first member of her family to appear in a non-documentary film. Her role as an extra in The Young Victoria was small and non-speaking. The film is based on the accession and early reign of her ancestor Queen Victoria.

  Sony Pictures employed her for a time as a paid intern. She resigned after the hacking incident that hit Sony Group in late 2014.

  In April 2015 it was reported that Beatrice had decided to move to New York City. By April 2017 she held a full-time job and divided her time between London and New York. Known professionally as Beatrice York, she was Vice-President of Partnerships and Strategy at the software company Afiniti from 2016 to 2025. As of June 2025 she is a strategic advisor there. She also leads an Afiniti programme that engages senior business leaders around the world in supporting women in leadership.

  Scale AI and LionTree Asset Management have both given her roles. She also founded By-Eq Limited, an advisory group focused on emotional intelligence during the rise of artificial intelligence. In 2025 she launched Purpose Economy Intelligence Ltd alongside Luis Alvarado Martínez, a Spanish-born executive who has worked at the World Economic Forum since 2021. Beatrice is its director. The business develops software for homes and workplaces and offers management consulting.

  Not every part of her working life was hers to arrange. In January 2022 it was reported that she lost her taxpayer-funded police security in 2011. The report said her uncle Charles, then Prince of Wales, had intervened as part of a cost-cutting initiative.

  2022252632

• 5. Royal Duties

  ›

  On the 5th of April 2012, Beatrice accompanied Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to the traditional Royal Maundy service in York. She spoke with parishioners, received flowers from the public, and helped the Queen hand out Maundy money to pensioners.

  Before the 2012 Summer Olympics, she welcomed the Olympic flame on the steps of Harewood House near Leeds. In 2013 she and her sister promoted Britain overseas in Germany. In 2014 she visited the Isle of Wight, whose former Governor was her namesake, Princess Beatrice, a daughter of Queen Victoria. On the 24th of November 2014 she joined her father on an official engagement to the United Arab Emirates.

  On the 17th of September 2022, during the official mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, Beatrice joined her sister and six cousins for a 15-minute vigil around the coffin as it lay in state at Westminster Hall. Two days later she joined other members of the royal family at the state funeral.

  The accession of Charles III brought a new formal role. Her place in the succession, ninth as of 2026, made her eligible to be appointed a Counsellor of State. In that role she can potentially carry out official duties when the Sovereign is abroad or unwell.

  3435384044

• 6. Charity Work

  ›

  In 2002 Beatrice visited children living with HIV in Russia. At home she supported Springboard for Children, a literacy project for primary-school pupils with learning difficulties, and the Teenage Cancer Trust. In an interview for her 18th birthday she said she wanted to use her position to help others. By then she had already carried out charitable duties alongside her mother, through the organisations the Duchess supported.

  In April 2010 she became the first member of the British royal family to complete the London Marathon, running to raise money for Children in Crisis. In 2016 she, her mother and Eugenie worked with the British contemporary artist Teddy McDonald on Royal Love, the first royal contemporary art painting. It was painted at Royal Lodge and shown at Masterpiece London before being sold. McDonald donated all the proceeds to Children in Crisis. When that charity merged with Street Child in 2018, Beatrice became the ambassador for Street Child, a children's charity active in multiple countries.

  Big Change is a charity Beatrice founded with six friends to encourage young people to develop skills "outside a traditional academic curriculum". In 2012 she climbed Mont Blanc in its support. In 2016 she joined Sir Richard Branson and his children in the Virgin Strive Challenge, a fundraising event that included climbing Mount Etna.

  A nine-day South Asia tour in 2016 took her to Nepal, India and Bhutan. She travelled on behalf of the Franks Family Foundation and the Jamgon Kongtrul Eyes Centres, a free micro-surgical cataract programme. It runs in technical collaboration with Nepal's Tilganga Eye Centre, under the Nepali eye surgeon Sanduk Ruit. A few weeks later she attended the 2016 Asia Game Changer Awards Dinner at the United Nations in New York City. There she and Charles Rockefeller presented Ruit with his Asia Society Asia Game Changer Award.

  In 2017 Beatrice helped promote the anti-bullying book Be Cool Be Nice. She gave an interview to Vogue at a House of Lords event about being bullied for her fashion choices in early adulthood. Hello! magazine later named her one of the best-dressed royals. In May 2018 she attended the Met Gala in New York City. In October 2018 she toured Laos to "raise the profile of the UK" there, and she took part in the Luang Prabang Half-Marathon for Children.

  Forget-Me-Not Children's Hospice supports children with life-shortening conditions in West Yorkshire and North Manchester, and Beatrice is its patron. In November 2012 she became a patron of the York Musical Society. She has also supported Pitch@Palace, an initiative founded by her father to amplify and accelerate entrepreneurs' business ideas.

  In March 2019 Beatrice was elected a trustee of the Outward Bound Trust, after her father succeeded to the royal patronage from his father, the Duke of Edinburgh. In May 2019 a gala in New York City honoured her work with Friends Without a Border. She has also supported Kairos HQ, a non-profit organisation of entrepreneurs at universities in China, Europe, India and the US.

  February 2023 brought a patronage of the British Skin Foundation. In March 2025 she became patron of Borne, which funds research into the causes of premature birth. In July 2025 she took over as patron of the Chartered College of Teaching, a role her grandfather Prince Philip had held. In November 2025 she was appointed deputy patron of the Outward Bound Trust.

  7882858895

• 7. Love and Marriage

  ›

  Paolo Liuzzo, an Italo-American, briefly dated Beatrice in 2006. A previous charge against him for assault and battery caused controversy at the time. Then, for ten years until July 2016, she was in a relationship with Dave Clark, a businessman from Virgin Galactic.

  The couple who would marry are believed to have begun dating in September 2018. In March 2019 Beatrice attended a fundraising event at the National Portrait Gallery in London with the Anglo-Italian property developer Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. He is the only son of Alex Mapelli-Mozzi, a former Alpine skier for the Great Britain Olympic team. His family were granted the title of Count of the Kingdom of Italy in 1913 by King Victor Emmanuel III. It passes to all male descendants of Edoardo's great-grandfather Paolo Mapelli Mozzi, who lived from 1854 to 1921. The title may still be used by social courtesy, but its legal standing in Italy ended in 1948. It has no formal recognition in either the United Kingdom or Italy.

  In May 2019 the pair attended the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor, Beatrice's second cousin once removed. They became engaged in Italy in September 2019, and Andrew's office formally announced the betrothal on the 26th of September.

  The wedding was first scheduled for the 29th of May 2020 at the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace. A private reception in Buckingham Palace Gardens was to follow. The COVID-19 pandemic postponed first the reception and then the wedding itself. Beatrice finally married Mapelli Mozzi in a private ceremony on the 17th of July 2020 at the Royal Chapel of All Saints, Royal Lodge, Windsor.

  Her father's association with Jeffrey Epstein, an American financier and convicted sex offender, also affected the scale of the day. Andrew gave a widely criticised BBC interview and then withdrew from royal duties, and the arrangements were significantly reduced. He walked Beatrice down the aisle, but he does not appear in the official wedding portraits released by Buckingham Palace.

  Beatrice wore a remodelled gown by Sir Norman Hartnell, lent by the Queen. On her head was the Queen Mary Fringe Tiara, which the Queen had worn at her own wedding.

  4752576163

• 8. Family and Titles

  ›

  Christopher Woolf, known as Wolfie, is Beatrice's stepson. He comes from her husband's earlier relationship with the architect Dara Huang.

  On the 18th of September 2021, Beatrice gave birth to a daughter, Sienna Elizabeth Mapelli Mozzi, at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London. Sienna was 11th in line to the throne at birth. She was christened at the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace on the 29th of April 2022. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on the 8th of September 2022, she moved up to 10th.

  The family first lived in a four-bedroom apartment at St James's Palace. In late 2022 they reportedly moved to a manor house in the Cotswolds.

  On the 22nd of January 2025, at the same London hospital, Beatrice gave birth to a second daughter, Athena Elizabeth Rose. The baby arrived several weeks prematurely. Athena was christened at the Chapel Royal on the 12th of December, and she is 11th in line to the throne.

  Beatrice's name carries its own formalities. As a male-line grandchild of the sovereign, she was known at birth as "Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice of York". The territorial designation came from her father's former title, Duke of York. Since her marriage, the Court Circular has styled her "Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice, Mrs Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi".

  676872731