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| Princess Eugenie's soon-to-be-husband, Jack Brooksbank, is not a commoner. Pictured: Princess Eugenie, Brooksbank attends the wedding of Pippa Middleton and James Matthews at St Mark's Church in Englefield, west of London, on May 20, 2017. Photo: Getty Images/Justin Tallis/AFP |
By Camille Heimbrod, International Business Times
Princess Eugenie’s fiancé, Jack Brooksbank, may not be considered a commoner because his family has royal links.
Kate Harris, a journalist for Express, revealed that several photos of Brooksbank’s family were recently unearthed by Australian historian Michael Reed from Hallam College in Melbourne.
One of the photos featured Brooksbank’s great-uncle, Lord Hamilton of Dalzell with Queen Elizabeth II during their trip to Kingston upon Thames in 1961. Another snap shows King Edward VII with Brooksbank’s grandmother, Celia, great-grandfather Lord Burnham, and more, taken at Hall Barn.
Prior to the release of the photos, Brooksbank was dubbed as a commoner. But Reed claimed that this shouldn’t be the case.
“These photos prove – as do photos I unearthed of Kate Middleton’s aristocratic paternal family – that the Brooksbank family are not really commoners – they all move in the same circles as the royals and have done so for many years,” he said.
In July, Town & Country reported that Brooksbank may not be given an official title by the Queen after his wedding to Princess Eugenie so he will still be called Mr. Brooksbank.
“There is no precedent for giving a peerage to the commoner husband of a princess on the wedding day,” Marlene Koenig, a royal historian, said.
Princess Eugenie, on the other hand, will keep her royal title after she weds Brookbank. But she may also use Brooksbank as her surname. In 2016, rumors swirled that Prince Andrew asked the Queen to give her daughters’ future husbands earldoms. However, he also denied those claims.
“It is a complete fabrication to suggest I have asked for any future husbands of the Princesses to have titles. Whilst I appreciate, as granddaughters of the Queen there is considerable interest in my daughters, I cannot continue to stand by and have the media speculate on their futures based on my purported interventions, which are completely made up and an invention,” Prince Andrew said in a statement.
