Happy Birthday Princess Beatrice

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can scarcely believe it myself; the fifth lady in the Royal Family is 22 today! It seems like only yesterday I was sequestering myself indoors on a gorgeous summer's day alternately hunched over the radio or pacing my room, awaiting the news that she'd been born... In other words, my usual ritual when a royal birth is pending!

Having overcome her parents' divorce and dyslexia in the years since - all of which she had to do very much in the public eye - Princess Beatrice is poised to take on a role as a senior royal, unlike her shy younger sister Princess Eugenie, whose intentions toward her royal role have yet to be made clear. Much of the credit, it must be said, for her having turned out so well belongs with her parents - The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York - whose divorce was probably among the most civil in British history, likely because they never once forgot that their primary responsibility having had children was being parents. It's enough to make one want to add a verse or two to that grand old nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York...

At the time she was born much was made of how propitious was the birth of Princess Beatrice; having come into the world on the eighth day of the eighth month gave her at least as many advantages as being born royal - at least according to Chinese mythology, for whom the number eight is especially lucky; that she was also born in 1988 and the Year of the Dragon only confirmed it. The real confirmation, of course, has been the passage of years, and in watching her blossom from a rambunctious tot to a very regal yet very real young woman.
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