The Queen once 'forgot' youngest child Prince Edward's birthday: 'No card, no present'

Queen Elizabeth once forgot youngest son Prince Edward's birthday during his twenties, royal expert Ingrid Seward alleged.

On March 10, the Royal Family's Twitter account officially marked Prince Edward's 58th birthday. The family publicly wished the Queen's youngest child a happy birthday, alongside a photo of him smiling during a recent royal outing.

The Earl of Wessex is 14th in line to the throne and has sometimes been described as the Queen's 'forgotten' child.

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Edward has led a relatively quiet and scandal-free existence with his wife Sophie, Countess of Wessex and their two children Lady Louise Windsor and James, Viscount Severn.

According to royal expert Ingird Seward, the quiet royal was once forgotten by his mother on his very own birthday.

In 2019 Channel 5 documentary Paxman on the Queen's Children, Seward alleged Her Majesty once forgot her youngest son's birthday in the '90s when he was in his twenties.

"At Buckingham Palace [Edward] was lonely," she recalled.

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"One year on his birthday he went to have breakfast with the Queen and nothing was said. No card, no present. She didn't know it was his birthday."

Seward previously made this claim in her book Prince Edward: A Biography, released in 2005.

She said Edward sat down with his mother while she "ate her toast and marmalade and sipped her special blend of tea, which she makes herself".

According to Seward, there was no mention of the big day. However, hours later Edward received a present after a royal aide was made aware the monarch had forgotten.

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While Edward and wife Sophie are now known as the Earl and Countess of Wessex, that easily could not have been the case.

Upon their wedding in 1999, Her Majesty gifted the Wessexes their now well-established titles, but 'Earl and Countess of Wessex' was not the first option on the table.

Edward and Sophie were originally going to be known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge — titles now held by Prince William and Kate Middleton — but the Earl's love of 1998's Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love halted that train of thought.

Royal author and historian Kenneth Rose explained in a 2010 interview with The Telegraph: "Prince Edward was going to be the Duke of Cambridge, but he watched the film Shakespeare in Love, which had a character called the Earl of Wessex."