Over the weekend, there was an interesting update on Prince Edward and Sophie’s son James, the Earl of Wessex. James became the Earl of Wessex when his father was given the Edinburgh ducal title – before then, James was known as Viscount Severn (a title I’ve always adored). Anyway, James is now 18 years old, and he graduated from Radley College earlier this year. This past weekend, we heard that he was spending his summer working as a farmhand on the Sandringham estate. I believed that it was typical posh behavior – most titled aristocrats spent a summer or a gap year doing some random “working class” job early in their lives, before they inherit property or a trust fund. The news about James’s summer job also served as some hype in advance of the announcement about his future educational plans. Well, today, James received his A-level results and Buckingham Palace quickly announced James’ university plans. The plans are atypical for royalty.
Thousands of pupils across the UK have collected their A-level results on Thursday morning – and a member of the royal family is amongst them. James, Earl of Wessex, has collected his exam grades after completing his Sixth Form studies at Radley College in Oxfordshire earlier this year.
Prince Edward and Duchess Sophie’s son will be heading to the Royal Agricultural University to study Rural Land & Property Management , Buckingham Palace has now revealed.
In a statement, they said: “Having achieved the grades he needed, The Earl of Wessex will be going to the Royal Agricultural University to study Rural Land & Property Management. He will head straight there without taking a year out.”
James’s exact grades remain unknown, but his parents will be very proud regardless due to the tough nature of the exams.
The 18-year-old is following in the footsteps of his older sister, Lady Louise Windsor, who also went straight to university after receiving her own grades in 2022. Lady Louise, 22, has now chosen to take a gap year after her studies – as was revealed when she graduated from the University of St Andrews in Scotland last month – so James may choose to one day do the same.
A synopsis for James’ course reads: “This course offers proven routes to rewarding careers within rural business, estate management, consultancy and property in the countryside. Strutt and Parker, Dalcour Maclaren, Savills and Fisher German are some of the nationally recognised businesses our graduates have gone on to work for – and so could you,”
James is the first member of the British royal family to study at the Royal Agricultural University, although Princess Anne’s first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, studied there. The institution has some royal alumni, including Prince Gundakar of Liechtenstein and Ernst August von Hannover, who is now the husband of Monaco’s Princess Caroline.
I didn’t even know that any of this existed in Britain’s higher education. But it makes sense – I bet the lectures on duchy land management are mind-numbing and extremely confusing. It also sounds like James, much like his big sister, really does not care about “becoming a working royal.” Edward and Sophie really tried to position Louise and James as potential “secret weapons” for the Firm. But I guarantee that Louise is probably going to serve in the military or something military-adjacent. And it looks like James is already making plans to work for the Firm in a completely different way – by helping to manage some of the royal estates.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- Easter Mattins Service at St George’s Chapel Featuring: James Earl of Wessex Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 20 Apr 2025 Credit: Cover Images
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- Sophie, Countess of Wessex, James, Viscount Severn, Lady Louise Windsor at the Platinum Party at Buckingham Palace on June 4, 2022 as part of Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee celebrations.,Image: 697027984, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: -, Model Release: no, Credit line: James Veysey / Avalon
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- (L-R) – Prince Edward – The Duke of Edinburgh, son James – Earl of Wessex, Sophie – The Duchess of Edinburgh arrives for an Easter Service at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, London, England, UK on Sunday 20 April, 2025.,Image: 990307705, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
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- (L-R) – Prince Edward – The Duke of Edinburgh, son James – Earl of Wessex, Sophie – The Duchess of Edinburgh, Princess Eugenie arrives for an Easter Service at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, London, England, UK on Sunday 20 April, 2025.,Image: 990307721, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
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- James, Earl of Wessex arrive for the Royal wedding of Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling at All Saints Church on June 06, 2026 in Kemble, England. Peter Phillips, the son of Princess Anne, Princess Royal and eldest grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II, will marry NHS Nurse and writer Harriet Sperling during a ceremony at All Saints’ Church in Kemble today,Image: 1108401109, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Jules Annan/Avalon
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- Ceremonial Procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall The coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, draped in the Royal Standard with the Imperial State Crown placed on top, is carried on a horse-drawn gun carriage of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, during the ceremonial procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday Featuring: James, Viscount Severn and Lady Louise Windsor Where: London, Britain, United Kingdom When: 14 Sep 2022 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages.com/Cover Images **North America Rights Only**
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- Easter Mattins Service at St George’s Chapel Featuring: James Earl of Wessex Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 20 Apr 2025 Credit: Cover Images
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- Members of the British Royal Family attend a Christmas Day morning church service at St Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, Norfolk Featuring: James, Earl of Wessex, Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, Lady Louise Where: Sandringham, Norfolk, United Kingdom When: 25 Dec 2025 Credit: Cover Images **NOT AVAILABLE FOR HELLO MAGAZINE**
I think that’s…pretty smart? Seems like something Wills would have liked better than his art history background
Scooter could not have been bothered to complete the duchy course he was enrolled in. Scooter found art history difficult and then changed his major to geography.
Geography is not any easier, not that art history is easy either. And this course of study James is doing does seem a better fit for a future whole-entire-DUCHY owner/manager.
The Palace never would have let him go there because its reputation is as a “finishing school for toffs.”
I was thinking the same. I know he took a crash course ahead of taking over the Duchy of Cornwall, but it seems a proper education in land management would have served him well.
There was a bespoke course that he started (to avoid being a full time Royal) but it was never completed.
IIRC it was barely one semester and he couldn’t even turn up to that.
The class that he didn’t finish somehow started when George was an infant. He used to it avoid work and his wife and newborn son.
The part-time civilian air rescue pilot was also an excuse to avoid work. In reality he barely did enough flying to keep his pilot’s licence. If there was critical comment in the press he would suddenly appear in a ‘William to the rescue’ story with film captured by a conveniently nearby reporter.
@mosshearted
William and “Intensive course” (or whatever) and are mutually exclusive.
@anotherlily
William doesn’t have a pilot’s license—even though palace “experts” like to write that it’s Harry who doesn’t have one :))) —if I find footage on YouTube of Harry showing off in an Apache at air shows, I’ll post the link. As always, you have to swap the names.
It was the training commander himself—on the record—who stated that William never finished the course because he didn’t log enough flight hours. There were also statements from paramedics—though unnamed—describing what William’s “job” with the air ambulance was actually like. He hardly ever showed up; he was there very rarely, using his palace duties as an excuse (while at the palace, he’d use the ambulance job as an excuse). Yet, he was kept on the roster, and the crew often flew short-staffed—beyond the fact that one person already had to be left off the helicopter to make room for his bodyguard. I believe they even bought a special helicopter model with an extra seat.
They breathed a sigh of relief when he left.
As for the claim that William still flies helicopters—that’s true, but he isn’t the one piloting; he lacks the qualifications and has a dedicated pilot.
All of William’s schooling, university studies, courses, and military service were a sham. He’d show up briefly and get fed up; there was no real learning involved whatsoever.
He and Kate were a perfect match in that regard. Calls from the palace came in regularly (as a retired professor revealed), demanding that William’s grades be raised because “it wouldn’t do for the heir to the throne to have the worst marks.”
It seems he “served” his military time at home, in a ceremonial unit commanded by his aunt. He became infamous for losing his rifle.
Good for him. It sounds like it will be an interesting and difficult course of study* and he of course will be well positioned to “find a job” when he’s done (I mean he’ll probably have his pick of royal estates to manage lol.)
*I think this is the kind of thing that people think sounds easy as a major but actually isn’t.
You guys, my 14 year old son just saw this screen and the picture of James and said “hey! his hair is pretty good!!”
I guess that hairstyle really is everywhere for teenage boys right now 🤣🤣
I saw a video clip one mom posted of about a dozen young teen boys at a pizza party at her house. So cute!
They ALLLLL had that cut.
It reminded me of my nephew when he was 11. I guess he was advanced for his age! 😁
I think that is smart of both James and Louise. James can make himself useful to KCIII and eventually to William without becoming a working royal.
I seriously doubt the earl would want to work for the royals. However, I see him, like many experts in this domain, works for charities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to help achieve food security.
Honestly that sounds amazing. Now I want to go there. You know what AI and the apocalypse can’t take from you? The ability to work the land. I’ve been a city girl my whole life. But more and more I think farming is the only natural state for humans. We should all know how to live off the land. You go kid I’d never heard of a week ago.
I wonder what side of agriculture/land management he’ll go into. British farming was already in a bad way and now climate change is making very real threats to livelihoods and overall food security. If he has a mindset anything like his uncle Charles he could do some really interesting work. If he’s just interested in monetising grouse moors or whatever it’ll be a shame.
Either way good for him for pursuing something he’s apparently interested in that can be a career outside of the royal nonsense.
It’s a posho factory that Guy Pelly also attended. It’s known as the poshest university in the UK, a haven for the well to do that aren’t so bright and don’t want to do much.
Aww why you gotta burst my bubble like that?
Lololol I know, I am sorry!! My general rule of thumb is these people never do more when they can do less
Sorry, this is funny. We’re all like well done and then we get hit with a different perspective from boots on the ground.
Right?? 😂😂😂
OK, that is not true. Students from all over the world attended Royal Ag, ones who would be running significant agricultural concerns in their home countries on graduation. Wills should absolutely have attended for the networking, as well as ag, and maybe indirectly finding a more suitable (useful) bride.
This seems pretty smart. It sounds like a good job for someone in the aristocracy that doesn’t want to go the show pony route. Also, it may afford him the ability to live on estates like the one he grew up on , without worrying about the upkeep coming from his own pockets.
And I never got the vibe that him or his sister wanted to be a working royal, that seemed like their mom’s dream. His sister seems slightly more willing to do the family appearance stuff, but he has always looked like he would rather be anywhere else for those walkabouts.
That sounds extremely sensible and likely something he has a real interest in. Also, he has the family connections that can get him into places and probably the personal knowledge about the estates that he might work at. He’s going to easily be able to pick a place that suits him when the time comes for him to get a job.
I won’t have to worry about getting a job when he graduates. No doubt he will be given a job on the Windsor or Sandringham estates.
Tripped across that place in some of my reading. It’s very posh. A place for aristocrats who don’t want to do the Oxbridge route and want to stay rural rather than London based. Although there are probably normal people who are very annoyed by the reputation.
Good on him for doing realistic career planning. Also makes the case for him getting a home on one of the royal estates, or even keeping the lease wherever they are now.
The writing is on the wall about William being an awful boss and bully. Edward and Sophie have to kowtow and more to keep in with Charles and William but their children should be encouraged not to become working royals. No sensible parent would want their offspring to be at the mercy of Will: workhorse and scapegoat!?
Louise and James must be following the messy news of their family, seen how Harry (higher ranked but unprotected) was treated, seen how dependent their parents are, seen or heard how toxic William (and Kate) are, and decided to “nope” out of royal hangersonism. They’re still Gen Z, with all the side-eye of how previous generations did things that comes with that. If they keep their heads straight, and down, they can have nice lives outside the spotlight but still within privilege (they’re love lives will likely be public fodder, especially if the partners are goodlooking and interesting).
Exactly 💯 also any ambitious mamas out there intent on marrying into this particular family need to reconsider given how married in women are ill-treated!
If William treats his only brother this poorly then none of the more distant relatives are safe. I would hope that Edward and Sophie are smart enough to see this.
This particular school has a reputation for being extremely posh – the sons of aristos and wealthy landowners go there. (Ordinary students as well though). And of course he shouldn’t be looking to be a working royal – he’s way down the succession (17th or something?).
But then how’s he going to be the secret weapon???
🤣🤣🤣
By the way, in the UK, “graduated” is reserved for university education, not sixth form college etc.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/toff-finishing-school-booming-popularity-110000188.html
An amusing and enlightening story about this college, which the writer describes as having “traditionally attracted the sons of dukes set to inherit half of Dorset who need to know the difference between a field of barley and a field of wheat.”
She also notes: “I felt quite jealous, actually, of the ruddy-cheeked bonhomie that existed across campus. Perhaps if I’d gone there earlier, I might have found myself a husband with a large house, since there’s an old joke that female students go there to find a titled husband with a castle to marry.”
Beware the Jeremy Clarkson references therein.
I really enjoyed that piece, thanks for sharing:)
Written by the sister of William’s friend, Drummond Money-Coutts. Their father is a baron descended from the founders of Coutts, the Queen’s bank.
And she writes regularly for Tatler. Great article, very indicative of exactly the expectation for the Earl of Wessex’s future
It’s odd to me that he is an Earl but his parents don’t actually own any land or seem to have any real income? Where will he live once they’re gone? Will his family proximity to the king result in him also obtaining a mansion on a royal estate with a peppercorn rent?
James probably has a trust fund. He is one of the late Queen’s grandchildren and she regarded all her grandchildren as equal. Prince Edward will also have inherited money from both his parents, and the late Queen Mother. One of the features of ‘old money’ families is that their wealth is based on what they have rather than what they earn. In ‘Spare’ Prince Harry relates the financial impact of the sudden withdrawal of the royal protection officers when the Sussexes were in Canada. It was when their exact location in Canada had been released and they were vulnerable . For an equivalent level of security he was quoted 10 million a year. He couldn’t afford anything like that. Later, when they were buying the house in Montecito, it was partly funded by a mortgage because he didn’t want to spend any of the money his mother had left him. He regards this money as his children’s inheritance. Harry will have also now inherited money from both his grandparents. This may be why he has established a base in Portugal, a country which does not tax inherited money. Also, Meghan contributes a regular income through her media platform.
The Royal Agricultural University is relatively small with around one thousand undergraduates in comparison with the UK average of nine thousand. It offers courses in Agriculture, Business, Cultural Heritage, Environment, Equine, and Land & Property and has an equal balance of male and female students. (Pippa Middleton missed an opportunity here. She went to Edinburgh University where she was noted as being careful to build a social life among titled students).
We have no idea if Harry inherited any money from his grandparents. To me, its likely that he did not, since he made no mention of any such inheritances in Spare.
@Becks1. His grandparents were alive when he was buying the house in Montecito. I googled for info about Prince Philip. He left a relatively modest, by royal standards, estate believed to be around £30million. There were some charitable bequests but most of it was left to the Queen.
A little more googling has revealed that Jack Brooksbank took a job in Portugal just four months before Queen Elizabeth died. Harry and Meghan are believed to have bought their house in Portugal in 2023.
You have to bear in mind that the way royal inheritances go, the way to avoid “death duties” (inheritance tax) is to leave everything to the incoming monarch, because there is a law which says that monarchs don’t pay such taxes. So for centuries(?) the royals have received their inheritances either via long-established trusts (no taxes) or by the monarch leaving everything to the heir BUT getting around the tax laws by leaving written or verbal instructions stating who should get what from said inheritance. The problem with this is that the incoming monarch is free to disregard such requests because by law everything is his. So I agree with Becks1 that it is unlikely that Harry received anything and I’d say that THAT is one reason the leftovers and their media buddies were rubbing their hands in glee in their absolute certainty that Harry would come crawling back, broke and broken.
It is quite possible that the queen did leave instructions that Harry and his family should be funded or at least receive enough to cover their expenses in their new life, and Charles, being the vindictive little man he is, decided not to honour it, just like he had them evicted from Frogmore Cottage despite their having a valid lease. Only Charles and the leaky courtiers who read his papers would know – and the newpaper editors with whom they regularly coordinate talking points.
I think that there used to be a time when certain aristocratic families used to leave their wealth (jewellery and art spring to mind) to the monarch, on the secret understanding that the monarch would redistribute a significant portion of it to the aristocrats’ descendants, but this practice appears to have pretty much died out, probably because the monarch tended to keep the bulk of it. It must be hard seeing your family heirloom on the head of a queen or a king’s former side piece, I guess, so many families just sell the things and pay up.
I hope they leave him and his sister alone. Let them go to school, have some fun and privacy. They have Will and Kate’s kids to feast on and they are willingly throwing their kids to the wolves. Leave these two alone.
It’s posh. And in a glorious place.
Just looked up Cirencester and it’s in an absolutely beautiful part of England.
Janes becoming a working royal is up to Charles, and he has shown no intent to grant Janes or Louise royal status. The writing was on the wall when he gave the dukedom to Ed only for his lifetime, so Janes will not inherit it.
I think it’s why Sophie and Ed kiss up to William so much. Once he’s king, Willy can grant Ed’s kids royal status, and he can bestow the dukedom on James when Ed dies. I think getting the HRH titles is within reach, but I think Willy would give the dukedom to his own kid or a grandkid.
I’m starting to think that bad posture just simply runs in that family. Harry is the only one who seems to be able to stand up straight.
He was a soldier standing at attention requires good posture. The rest are all toy soldiers except for Andrew, he was a pilot during the Falkland Islands war. Legitimately, he and Harry are the only ones who have earned the right to wear a uniform and the medals, even if he is an abomination.