On Thursday 26th September 2019, Buckingham Palace released the following statement:
“The Duke and Duchess of York are delighted to announce the engagement of Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice of York to Mr. Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi.
Her Royal Highness and Mr. Mapelli Mozzi became engaged while away for the weekend in Italy earlier this month.
The wedding will take place in 2020. Further details will be announced in due course.
Princess Beatrice and Mr. Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi said, “We are extremely happy to be able to share the news of our recent engagement. We are both so excited to be embarking on this life adventure together and can’t wait to be married. We share so many similar interests and values and we know this will stand us in great stead for the years ahead, full of love and happiness.”
The Duke and Duchess of York said, “We are thrilled that Beatrice and Edoardo have got engaged, having watched their relationship develop with pride. We are the lucky parents of a wonderful daughter who has found her love and companion in a completely devoted friend and loyal young man. We send them every good wish for a wonderful family future.”
Mrs. Nikki Williams-Ellis and Mr. Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi said, “We are truly delighted about Edoardo and Beatrice’s engagement. Our family has known Beatrice for most of her life. Edo and Beatrice are made for each other, and their happiness and love for each other is there for all to see. They share an incredibly strong and united bond, their marriage will only strengthen what is already a wonderful relationship.””
Princess Beatrice was born on 8th August 1988, the eldest child of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and his former wife Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. Prince Andrew is the third child and second son of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke and Duchess of York married in 1986, but separated in 1992, later divorcing. However, they remain close friends, sharing family holidays and occasions, raising their daughters together, and even living in the same place at times; Royal Lodge, Windsor, the country home of the Duke of York. Princess Beatrice is not a full time working member of the royal family, but she attends family occasions such as weddings and birthdays, and bigger family events such as celebrations for Jubilee’s and Trooping the Colour. Her younger sister, Princess Eugenie, was married last October to Mr Jack Brooksbank.
Beatrice supports a range of charities and organisations. The official website of the Duke of York states she, “focuses the majority of her charitable work around children’s welfare and education. Princess Beatrice is dyslexic and as such is interested in charities involved with dyslexia and learning difficulties.
In 2007, HRH became a global ambassador for Street Child (formally known as Children in Crisis), a charity founded by her mother, Sarah, Duchess of York, in 1993. The charity aims to help educate children and women from some of the poorest countries.
In April 2010, Princess Beatrice became the first member of the Royal Family to complete the London Marathon, running with friends to raise money as part of ‘Team Caterpillar’, which supported a number of charities.
HRH, along with six friends, also founded The Big Change Charitable Trust, which identifies and supports charitable projects throughout the UK that improve the lives of young people. In September, 2012, Princess Beatrice alongside her fellow founders climbed Mont Blanc in The Big Change’s first fundraising project: The Big Climb.
In May, 2016, HRH was a Judge of Oscar’s Book Prize, a children’s book award paying tribute to Oscar Ashton’s love of stories. The award aims to highlight the importance of reading with children. Princess Beatrice is now Patron of Oscar’s Book Prize.
Princess Beatrice, alongside Princess Eugenie, became Patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust in June, 2016. Her mother, Sarah, Duchess of York, is also a long-term honorary Patron of the charity. The Teenage Cancer Trust supports young people facing cancer.
HRH is Patron of the Berkshire Community Foundation, Northwood African Education Foundation, Charity:Water, English National Ballet School, Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice, Helen Arkell Dyslexia Centre, The Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity, The York Theatre Royal and The York Musical Society.”
Beatrice has a 2:1 in History and History of Ideas, from Goldsmith’s College, London. Beatrice works in business, but exact details of her work are kept private. She had a 10 year relationship with Dave Clark that ended a few years ago. Just under a year ago, Beatrice started dating Eoardo Mapelli Mozzi, whom she and his friends call Edo. Edoardo has a 2 year old son, Christopher Woolf, ‘Woolfie,’ from a previous relationship. Edoardo himself has some Italian blue blood, prompting me to think how in a way this is a more traditional marriage that Beatrice’s cousins and sister, as they all married commoners. But Beatrice has followed what for centuries was royal tradition; marrying a member of a foreign royal or aristocratic family.
The photos released as the official engagement photos were taken by Beatrice’s sister Eugenie, and show the couple smiling and caressing, in Windsor Great Park. Once again, the choice of photographer shows how close the down-to-earth York family are, and I think is testimony to the friendship between the Duke and Duchess of York, despite their divorce. As with JAck Brooksbank, Andrew and Sarah have welcomed their future son-in-law with open and loving arms into their tight knit and loving family. Beatrice looked radiant in the photos, wearing a beautiful green floral midi dress by Australian brand Zimmermann, that suited her red hair wonderfully. Her engagement ring features a platinum band set with diamond pave, with a large central brilliant-cut diamond and tapered diamond shoulders, and was designed by British Jeweler Shaun Lean. Edoardo proposed earlier this week, during a holiday in Italy.
Edoardo’s family are close friends of the York’s, and the newly engaged couple have known each other all their lives. They have been seen in public as an item in New York, some time after Eugenie’s wedding. In the New Year pictures emerged of them strolling hand in hand while on a beach in Lamu Island, Kenya, where Edo's family own a luxury coastal estate. In May, at the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor to Tom Kingston at St George's Chapel, Windsor, where the Queen was also a guest, Edoardo was a guest with Beatrice. Then in June, he was a guest at St James's Palace, alongside Beatrice, for an event called Pitch@Palace, an initiative to support entrepreneurs founded by the Duke of York.
Edoardo has dual Italian and British citizenship, and owns a UK real estate business. He is also the co-founder of a charity called Cricket Builds Hope, which uses sport as a 'tool for social change' in Rwanda. Brought up in England and educated at Radley College, in Oxfordshire, he studied for a Master's in politics at Edinburgh. His father is Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, who skied for Great Britain at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Japan. His mother is Nikki, but the couple divorced when Edoardo and his sister were young. Nikki remarried to Christopher Shale, and Edoardo was close to his stepfather, who died of undiagnosed heart disease in 2011. It is Christopher and Nikki who were close to the York’s, with the York’s attending Christopher’s funeral, and the Duchess of York being godmother to Alby, Nikki and Christopher’s son, and Edoardo’s half-brother.
Having grown a business and developed many properties, Edoardo created three of his own homes, in West London, but earlier this year said he was, “in St James's at the moment,” so he may have moved in with Princess Beatrice, as she has an apartment in St James's Palace that she used to share with her sister.
I think it is lovely that the Princess has found happiness, and think she will make an excellent stepmother. I hope they will be happy together.