Who's who of Prince George's godparents

THE list of Prince George's godparents is heavy on old friends, light on royalty.

Godparent Zara Philips and husband England rugby player Mike Tindall leave the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, after the christening of the three month-old Prince George.

IT is a break with tradition, but hardly a royal revolution. The list of Prince George's godparents is heavy on old friends, light on royalty, but the suggestion that it would be wholly free of the aristocracy now appears to have been wide of the mark.

Only one member of the Royal Family makes the cut, and she does not even have a title: Zara Phillips, or Mrs Mike Tindall when she is not working, is the royal who is closest to William outside his immediate family, and one of the least stuffy and formal.

There is a title in there, too, in the form of Earl Grosvenor, son of the Duke of Westminster, who may be nine years younger than William but is someone who has known the Prince all his life. His mother was William's godmother.

The strongest message to emerge from the list is the importance to the couple of their longstanding friends. One godparent, Emilia Jardine-Paterson, is a friend of the Duchess's since school; another, William van Cutsem, is a childhood friend of the Duke, and a third, Oliver Baker, was a mutual friend at St Andrews. Interestingly, a seemingly well-informed article about possible godparents got only one right, suggesting, if nothing else, that the couple's friends remain loyally discreet.

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The choice of Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, their former principal private secretary, reflects how significant a role he has played in their life. However, it is the choice of Julia Samuel that serves as a reminder that the Duke's late mother is never far from his thoughts. A child bereavement counsellor who founded a charity of which William is patron, she was for several years one of the closest friends of Diana, Princess of Wales.

ZARA PHILLIPS

Feisty and unaffected, she kept her maiden name for work after marrying the England rugby player Mike Tindall and is probably William's favourite royal cousin, and, at 32, the closest in age. Her first child is due early next year.

Like her mother before her, she has carved out a career in equestrianism, becoming the eventing world champion in 2006 and being voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year the same year. As part of the GB eventing team, she won a silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics.

WILLIAM VAN CUTSEM

Rich, reliable and discreet, the Van Cutsems have been close friends of the Royal Family ever since William's grandfather Bernard trained horses for the Queen, making it an odds-on certainty that one of them would be a godparent; the only question was which. William, 34, is the youngest of the four sons of the late Hugh van Cutsem, who was at Cambridge with the Prince of Wales. His niece, Grace, was a bridesmaid at the royal wedding, covering her ears at the noise as the couple kissed on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Another van Cutsem brother, Edward, was a page boy at the wedding of William's parents in 1981, and last month both William and Harry attended Hugh's funeral with their father. Earlier this year William and the heavily pregnant Kate attended Mr van Cutsem's wedding to Rosanna Ruck Keene in the village of Ewelme, south Oxfordshire.

The family used to rent Anmer Hall on the Sandringham Estate, the future home of the Duke and Duchess and Prince George; now they have a 1,600hectare (4,000 acre) estate near Swaffham, Norfolk.

EMILIA JARDINE-PATERSON

The former Emilia d'Erlanger is the epitome of the loyal friend. She has known the Duchess since they were at Marlborough College together - they both played in the hockey team - and, as a former member of the so-called "Glosse Posse", has been a friend of William's since she was 19. As a teenager, she seems to have been on the lively side: their former hockey teacher recalled once how she put a snowball down his neck in the first term.

When William and Kate broke up for a spell, she accompanied Kate on holiday to her uncle Gary's villa in Ibiza. The trio have remained close. William and Kate attended her wedding to David Jardine-Paterson, a friend of William's from Eton.

Now a Kensington-based interior designer, she is said to have informally advised the Duchess on the decoration of their new home at Apartment 1a, Kensington Palace.

JAMIE LOWTHER-PINKERTON

A former SAS major who served in the Gulf War, he was running hostile-environment training courses for journalists and other travellers when he was recruited in 2005 to be William and Harry's private secretary. He had already earned his royal credentials,having served as an equerry to the Queen Mother in the 1980s.

Calm, firm and decisive, Mr Lowther-Pinkerton, 52, who lives in an old rectory in Suffolk, is held in high regard by the Princes. His son Billy was chosen to be one of the page boys at the royal wedding in 2011.

He recently stepped down from full-time royal employment, but still works one day a week as an adviser to the Duke and Duchess and Prince Harry.

OLIVER BAKER

Known as Ollie to his friends - and even "Hairy" Baker, on occasion - he was part of the couple's trusted inner circle at St Andrews. During their two years Ollie, 31, and the couple were part of a foursome that shared Balgove House, a farmhouse they rented on the Strathtyrum estate near St Andrews. With its hedgerows, wildflower meadow and stone wall, it was likened by William to a miniature Highgrove.

The banker married Melissa Nicholson, a fellow St Andrews graduate, in 2010, in a wedding held in the university town and attended by William and Kate.

Melissa, known as Mel, was a good friend of Kate's at St Andrews, where they would go out for pizza together. The two couples are said to be close: when Kate moved to London after graduating she was said to have moved into a flat with the future Mrs Baker.

JULIA SAMUEL

The choice of Mrs Samuel is a poignant nod to William's mother, who, for a while, was one of her close friends. Now 54, the mother of four is a maternity and paediatric counsellor at StMary's Hospital, Paddington, where she helps families who have lost a child. She was also co-founder of Child Bereavement UK, a charity of which William has been Royal Patron since 2009.

She met and became friends with the Princess in 1987 when the two were seated next to each other at a dinner and, according to Mrs Samuel "saw something in each other". It was at Mrs Samuel's 30th birthday party that Diana met her lover, James Gilbey.

She told an interviewer in 2009: "Diana and I did ordinary things that any friends would do. We went for lunch, our children stayed together, we chatted, we did family things."

Part of the Guinness banking dynasty, her sister Sabrina is a former girlfriend of the Prince of Wales.

EARL GROSVENOR

Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor, 22, the Earl Grosvenor, epitomises the fact that, in royal circles, everyone is connected to everyone else. Heir to the Duke of Westminster, owner of the vast property company Grosvenor Group and one of the richest men in the country, his mother Natalia was godmother to Prince William. Her family has long been close to the Royal Family, being distantly related to both the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

His sister, Lady Tamara Grosvenor, married Edward van Cutsem, whose brother William is another godparent.

Last year his father gave him a lavish party at the family seat of Eaton Hall in Cheshire to celebrate his 21st birthday, with appearances by the comedian Michael McIntyre and the hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks. Prince Harry was reported to be among the guests.

The Times