The Princess of Wales felt responsible for the end of one of her sister’s relationships – and it threatened to tarnish her very first Christmas with the royal family.

Kate was invited to join the late Queen at Sandringham for the festive season in December 2011. And while it was an exciting time for Prince William’s new wife, she reportedly felt sad to be separated from Pippa who had split with her boyfriend Alex Loudon just one month earlier.

Writing in her 2013 book, Kate The Future Queen, Katie Nicholl said that the Princess missed her family, noting: “She was particularly sad not to be with her sister, who was heartbroken after having recently split up with Alex Loudon.”

Pippa and Alex dated for 18 months, with the former Etonian even accompanying Pippa to William and Kate’s royal wedding in Westminster Abbey.

Pippa Middleton and Alex Loudon pictured in 2011

But Alex, a former England cricketer, ended the relationship due to complications that came with Pippa’s new royal profile, it was claimed. “The plain truth is Alex adored Pippa but he couldn’t stand the circus that now surrounds her. Nothing is straightforward anymore,” a friend of the couple told the Mail on Sunday at the time.

As a result, Kate is said to have felt somewhat responsible for the breakdown of their romance, and upset about the attention her new royal status had brought to her family.

“Kate felt a measure of responsibility, as she knew that everyone in her family was in a vulnerable position now that she had become Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cambridge,” Ms Nicholl wrote in her book at the time.

Alex himself comes from a very grand family. His grandfather Francis, a barrister, married Lady Prudence Jellicoe, daughter of Admiral Sir John Henry Rushworth Jellicoe, the first Earl of Jellicoe. His father, James, meanwhile, was a successful financier and former High Sheriff of Kent.

His parents reportedly didn’t judge Pippa as ‘wife material’ but were ‘welcoming’ towards her, a friend previously said.

Alex was a professional cricketer until he quit in 2007 to pursue work in business finance instead, and become a City banker.

Pippa and James Matthews on their wedding day ( Image:

Getty Images)

Pippa, meanwhile, went on to find love with hedge fund manager James Matthews. The couple were married on 20 May 2017 at St Mark’s Church at Englefield Estate and have gone on to welcome three children together – Arthur, six, Grace, three, and two-year-old Rose.

News of Pippa’s third pregnancy became public when she showed off her baby bump in a bright green dress during the 2022 Party at the Palace concert for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee.

Rose became Carole and Michael Middletons’ sixth and youngest grandchild, behind her older siblings, and their royal cousins Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis.