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The granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, Zara Phillips, gave birth to a baby girl yesterday, the palace announced, a first child for the champion horse rider and her rugby-player husband Mike Tindall. |
The unnamed girl arrives five months after Britain’s other royal baby - Prince George, born to Phillips’s cousin Prince William and his wife Kate. “Zara Phillips safely delivered a baby girl,” Buckingham Palace said in a statement. “Tindall was present at the birth. The weight of the baby was seven pounds, 12 ounces (3.5kgs),” it added.
The baby is the Queen’s fourth great-grandchild and is 16th in line to the British throne. Her name will be announced in due course, the palace said.
The new mother, who is the eldest child of Princess Anne and her ex-husband Mark Phillips, gave birth at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in the city of Gloucester.
Tindall, a former England centre and 2003 World Cup winner, currently plays and coaches for English Premiership club Gloucester. The palace said the Queen and her husband Prince Philip were “delighted with the news”, while Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: “Many congratulations to Zara and Mike Tindall on the birth of their baby girl.”
Like her mother, the baby will not bear a royal title and will be known as plain “Miss Tindall”.
Phillips, whose parents are both former professional horse riders, followed in their footsteps by becoming a world-class three-day eventer, winning the world championship in 2006. She won a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympics and is planning to take part in the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.
The Queen’s eldest granddaughter sparked controversy by continuing to ride into her pregnancy, though she stopped in the later months. Tindall has not played for England since the team’s woeful performance in the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.