Why Pregnant Princess Beatrice’s New Baby Will Have a Royal Title, but Not from King Charles

Princess Beatrice’s new baby will be born with a royal title, but not from the British royal side of the family.

On Oct. 1, Buckingham Palace announced that Princess Beatrice is pregnant, expecting her second child with husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. Princess Beatrice, 36, is the elder daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and she and her husband are parents to daughter Sienna, 3, and Christopher Woolf, 8, Edo’s son from a previous relationship.

The palace said Princess Beatrice’s baby is due to arrive “early in the new year,” and it’s expected that the child will be born as 11th in the line of succession to the throne. Like big sister Sienna, the baby is also expected to inherit a royal title — from Italy.

Edo descends from Italian aristocracy, meaning that Beatrice became an Italian “Contessa” and “Nobile Donna,” or noblewoman, after they married in July 2020. As the eldest son of Count Alessandro Mapelli Mozzi, he will one day inherit his family’s ancestral seat, the 18th-century Villa Mapelli Mozzi palazzo in northern Italy. According to Hello!, the property is located less than an hour away from Milan and has 13 bedrooms and an outdoor swimming pool.

“Edoardo is the only male descendent taking the family into the next generation,” Alessandro told the Daily Mail in 2020. “He is a count — his wife will be a countess automatically, and any of their children will be counts or nobile donna.”

Alessandro spoke about the sweet bond Edo and Bea share elsewhere in the interview ahead of the wedding, mentioning, “They are very suited to each other and have known each other for a long time. I’ve never seen him so happy.”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the family, Edo and Beatrice’s children don’t have royal titles from her uncle, King Charles, because they are not his grandchildren.

The current precedent on future stylings was established by King George V, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather. In 1917, he issued a Letters Patent which read, “…the grandchildren of the sons of any such sovereign in the direct male line (save only the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) shall have and enjoy in all occasions the style and title enjoyed by the children of dukes of these our realms.”

In other words, the children of Princess Beatrice’s first cousins, Prince William and Prince Harry, were always destined to inherit royal titles because their grandfather is the sovereign. In March 2023, PEOPLE confirmed that Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, were using the royal titles afforded to their children, Prince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3, in Princess Lilibet’s christening announcement. 

“The children’s titles have been a birthright since their grandfather became monarch,” a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex told PEOPLE at the time. “This matter has been settled for some time in alignment with Buckingham Palace.”

Next year, the royal family will expand when Princess Beatrice and Edo’s second child is born, and the couple put their kids at the heart of the announcement.

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“Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice and Mr Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi are very pleased to announce that they are expecting their second child together early in the new year; a sibling for Wolfie and Sienna,” said the palace statement, which affectionately used Christopher Woolf’s family nickname. 

 “His Majesty The King has been informed and both families are delighted with the news,” it said.

The update came with two new family photos. One shot showed Beatrice and Edo posing close to one another, followed by a second snap of Edo walking in the woods with his kids, where they all held hands.

Princess Beatrice became the first member of her generation of the British royal family to step into the role of stepparent, and a source previously told PEOPLE that she embraced the role from the get-go. 

“Beatrice is a wonderful and very hands-on stepmom,” the source said.