Who Is Rose Hanbury? What to Know About Her Connection to Prince William and Kate Middleton

As royal watchers continue to ask “Where’s Kate Middleton” amid the Princess of Wales’ continued absence from the public eye during her ongoing recovery from abdominal surgery in January and her Photoshop controversy, another name is being linked to the British royal family. The Princess of Wales and her husband Prince William’s former close friend, Rose Hanbury, the Marchioness of Cholmondeley, is back in the limelight. In recent days, not only has her name started to trend on X (formerly Twitter), but she was also mentioned by Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert amid years-long rumors of an affair. But who exactly is Rose Hanbury and what is her connection to the royal couple?

A former model, Hanbury is married to David Rocksavage, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley), who is 23 years older than her. The couple married in 2009 and share three children, per Entertainment Tonight – 15-year-old twins Alexander Hugh George Cholmondeley, Earl of Rocksavage; Lord Oliver Timothy George Cholmondeley, who served as one of four Pages of Honour for King Charles III’s coronation ceremony; and 8-year-old daughter, Lady Iris Marina Aline Cholmondeley.

Hanbury has a well-established royal connection. Her grandmother, Lady Rose Lambert, was a bridesmaid in Queen Elizabeth II’s marriage to Prince Philip, and her own connection with the royal family goes even deeper than that, Parade reports. Hanbury and her husband are part of an elite crew known as the Turnip Toffs, a group of British aristocrats who live near one another in the countryside. The couple, who married in 2009, live at Houghton Hall, which was built in the 1700s for Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. The residence is located just a few miles away from Anmer Hall, the 19th-century country house William and Middleton received as a wedding gift from the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Hanbury’s name has cycled in and out of the British royal family rumor mill for years now. Notably, back in 2019, rumors surfaced that Hanbury, once described as Middleton’s “close friend,” had a falling out with the royal earlier that year. The reported falling out was linked to long-standing rumors of Williams’ alleged infidelity. More recently, Hanbury’s name was pushed back into the spotlight amid speculation regarding Middleton, with similar rumors arising of an alleged affair.

In the years since the first affair rumors arose, Hanbury, Middleton, and William have not spoken publicly on the topic. However, William’s attorney denied the claims when he told The Daily Beast in 2019 it was “false and highly damaging.” Meanwhile, royal expert Omid Scobie mentioned the allegations in his latest book about the royals, Endgame, later explaining to Entertainment Tonight, “Unfortunately, if a rumor’s left to kind of do its own thing it can run 20 laps around the world before you even think about what, how you want to kind of address it. They never addressed it, so those rumors will never go away even though there’s no truth to suggest that they are true.”