As some members of the Royal Family went out this past weekend to attend the 2024 Easter Service in Windsor, the Daily Mail released an exclusive article about a distant cousin of the monarch who lives a drastically different life.
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His name is Rowan Lascelles and for those of us who watched The Crown, the name Lascelles rings a bell. Indeed, Alan ‘Tommy’ Lascelles worked as the Private Secretary to both King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. His descendant, Rowan, now 68th in the line of succession, is making headlines and it’s definitely not for something honourable.
Let’s have a look at who this distant cousin is and what is going on with him.
Who is Rowan Lascelles?
Rowan Lascelles was born in 1977 in Sotherton in East Suffolk. He is the great-grandson of Mary, Princess Royal, the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. As such, Rowan Lascelles is a distant cousin of King Charles.
His family owns the prestigious Harewood House in Yorkshire which is listed as a Treasure House of England.
Not much is known about Rowan except that his parents are called James Lascelles and Frederica Ann Duhrssen. His father, James, is a musician and founded the band Global Village Trucking Company in the 1970s. James was married three times and it’s with his first wife, Frederica, that he had Rowan and his older sister Sophie.
James and Frederica have been described by their own daughter Sophie as hippies. According to Richard Kay in his Daily Mail column, this hippy environment has been blamed by Rowan for his issues in life.
What happened to Rowan Lascelles?
In his column, Richard Kay phrases it impeccably when he writes that the beginning of his downward spiral is ‘unknown’ but, according to the royal expert’s research, an offence can be traced back to 2006 when Rowan was in Cambodia.
At the time, Lascelles was staying at a resort and entered a heated argument with a fellow guest. This led to Rowan throwing the man’s laptop into a lake and the police confiscating his passport. Richard Kay then explains that Rowan eventually returned to the UK and ‘started sleeping rough on the streets of London’ which coincides with the start of his criminal activities.
Throughout the years, it is reported that attempts to place Rowan in council housing resulted in him being removed due to his ‘unreasonable behaviour’. In order to know more about Rowan Daily Mail spoke to Westminster’s rough sleeping coordinator, George Bossman who explained:
When he doesn’t like something, he gets extremely angry and abuses people.
There have been frightening, aggressive outbursts and racist behaviour, and he has been engaging in the illicit use of substances.
According to Daily Mail, Rowan was jailed for sixteen weeks in 2018 after he was found guilty of a ‘second racially aggravated crime’.
In the Autumn of 2023, Lascelles stood before court for several incidents including ‘racially-aggravated harassment and threatening behaviour’. He reportedly told a charity worker:
I’m going to get a knife and stab you in the face
But, Rowan’s legal issues don’t end there. In the last week of March 2024, ‘a warrant for his arrest was issued’ after he failed to attend court. During that court hearing he was convicted of his use of racial slurs as well as the threats made against the charity worker.
Lascelles has been described by a Police Constable as ‘a burden on the Metropolitan Police’. And, so far, he hasn’t been found.
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Sources:
Daily Mail: Tragic fall of aristocrat who's 68th in line to the throne: He's lived a sad life of sleeping rough and spice addiction. But he was raised in 'Downton Abbey' and is godson of The Crown's Tommy Lascelles. RICHARD KAY reveals what went wrong…
Daily Mail: The King's wayward cousin: Charles' relative being hunted by police is a pop star's son who has racked up 21 convictions for racial assault and abuse, smashing up property and threatening to stab a charity worker in the face
