Princess Charlotte and Prince William were the only British royals roaring their support for the Lionesses from the stands at the Euros 2025 final in Basel. However, the team's successful defence of their title has led to a particularly special royal appearance on home turf.
Princess Beatrice, wearing a gorgeous Farm Rio maxi skirt and her husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi in a shirt and khaki trousers, were amongst the thousands of fans who lined the Mall to glimpse the bus carrying England's national women's football team during the homecoming victory parade. And they didn't come alone…
Seven-month-old Athena Mapelli Mozzi and her older siblings Sienna and Wolfie were also there to celebrate. She was strapped carefully into a baby carrier on her doting dad and was wearing an adorable pastel pink outfit, complete with a frilled collar and little socks.
This cute family outing marks the first time fans have been given a glimpse of Athena in public and in-person since she was born on 22nd January. The only times we've seen her up to now have been via photographs, starting with the one released alongside her birth announcement.
Taken by Edoardo, the picture showed her wrapped in a pink blanket with her hand held over her face. Another picture of her being held lovingly by her mum was shared alongside a personal essay penned by Princess Beatrice for British Vogue about Athena's preterm birth.
In it, Princess Beatrice wrote of the "sheer worry" and "tears of relief" she shed when her second daughter arrived safely ahead of her due date. Born at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Athena Elizabeth Rose Mapelli Mozzi was 4 pounds and 5 ounces when she arrived into the world and is 11th in the royal line of succession, directly behind her sister Sienna.
Both she and Sienna have 'Elizabeth' as a middle name in tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth, as do Princess Charlotte, Isla Phillips and Lena Tindall. Since welcoming their girls, Princess Beatrice and Edoardo have ensured they have a high level of privacy and the outing to London was also one of the first times we’ve seen Sienna’s face in pictures.
As the Princess isn’t a working member of the Royal Family she no longer appears on the balcony at Trooping the Colour or at other big non-family occasions, so her daughters have yet to be fully introduced to royal public events.
This might come in time as they get older but at the moment appearances like this from Athena are likely to remain very rare.
That’s why it’s so lovely to see them out enjoying time in London together, especially in light of the worry that Athena’s parents experienced ahead of her birth. In her British Vogue essay, Beatrice reflected that so many of the "elements of pregnancy are universal".
"I’ve had a life that is out of the ordinary, but my joys and fears in pregnancy and motherhood are the same as those experienced by millions of other women around the world," she wrote. "Like countless other expectant mums, I lay awake in the weeks leading up to birth, trying to monitor each movement of the baby in my tummy and asking myself a thousand times: "What if this happens, or what if that happens?"
Letting readers know Athena is "doing really well", the Princess went on to explain how those "months of sheer worry" have filled her with a "sense of determination" to help ensure more is done to help "others find answers to those questions around the complications that can lead to preterm birth".
