Happy birthday James, Earl of Wessex! Meet the former Viscount Severn, son of Prince Edward and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh

James’s former styling as Viscount Severn (another of his father’s subsidiary titles) is a nod to his mother’s Welsh familial roots, alluding to the River Severn. Although it’s customary to assign princely status and the style of His or Her Royal Highness to all children of a monarch’s sons, it was announced by Buckingham Palace on Edward and Sophie’s marriage in 1999 that any future children would be styled as the children of an earl, rather than children of a prince. The…