Prince Edward's rumored relocation to Scotland, with his wife, the Countess of Wessex, became one of the top trending topics on Twitter for the wrong reasons.
Over the weekend, the Daily Mail reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office had considered asking Edward and Sophie to move to the Queen's official Scottish residence, Holyrood Palace, in Edinburgh. Apparently, there has been a growing sentiment for another referendum of independence in Scotland with the popularity of SNP leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in the May 2021 elections.
Downing Street apparently planned for Edward and Sophie to "save the union" but when this news reached Twitter netizens, most reactions on the social media platform were of laughing emojis and ridicule. Some of the posts said that it was hard to imagine Edward convincing the Scots not to leave the union, according to Yahoo! News.
But one post from researcher Phillippa Juliet Meek-Smith said that while she is taking the Daily Mail story with "a pinch of salt," it seemed to suggest that Edward will indeed inherit the title of the Duke of Edinburgh from his father, Prince Philip.
In 2018, The Sunday Times reported that Edward is in line to receive the title since his brother, Prince Charles, will inherit the Queen's throne. His other brother, Prince Andrew, is already the Duke of York while Edward asked for a specially-made title just for him -- the Earl of Wessex.
Technically, however, the title will go back to the Crown once Prince Philip dies and may be reissued by the monarch and in this case, the monarch is still Queen Elizabeth. But if Charles is the king by then, he doesn't have to reissue the title to his brother.
Meanwhile, the Queen and Prince Philip's youngest isn't popular with the public as he rarely does his royal work around the media. The Earl of Wessex didn't become a working royal until the early 2000s after he folded up his production company, Ardent Productions.
He also irked his father when he left the Royal Marines to chart a career as a TV producer, where he did not succeed. But according to a royal insider, Edward -- and by extension, his wife, Sophie -- is now the favorite of his parents. Over two decades, the Queen's youngest son has molded himself into a "quiet and efficient figure" as a working member of the royal family. Reports cited that his portrait is the only one hanging in the office of the Duke of Edinburgh.
