Peter Phillips' new NHS nurse girlfriend has aristocratic roots

Sperling had first been pictured with Princess Anne's son at the Badminton Horse Trials in early May as they supported Phillips's younger sister, Zara Tindall.

And the duo's relationship had blossomed very swiftly after the King's nephew, 46, split with partner Lindsay Wallace after three years together.

Sperling had made headlines for her position as an NHS paediatric nurse - if the couple were to marry, she would be the first from the health service to enter the Royal Family, it is believed - but now, the Telegraph has revealed a number of links to Britain's aristocracy and business dynasties.

The nurse, 44, is related through marriage to the Duke of Gloucester, while she can also trace links into the Courage brewing family through her great-grandmother on her father's side, Dorothy Courage.

She had been born Harriet Eleanor Sanders in 1980 to parents Mary Hoskins and Rupert Sanders - whose engagement featured in Country Life magazine in 1971.

Rupert, who died in 2023, was the son of High Sheriff of Gloucestershire Major Geoffrey Sanders and Eleanor Sanders - the daughter of Dorothy Courage.

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The links only continue; Dorothy Courage's brother Raymond was Lord of the Manor of Edgcote in Northamptonshire - an estate whose land was once owned by King Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves.

Edgcote House had been home to the Courage family for around 80 years until Christopher Courage - Sperling's second cousin once-removed - sold the estate for £30million.

While the NHS nurse's father, Sanders, was present at the 1969 wedding of his first cousin, Timothy de Zoete, to Moyra Dawnay, Princess Alice's niece, at St Margaret's Church - in the grounds of Westminster Abbey.

Princess Alice had also been at the wedding with her husband, Prince Henry - the late Duke of Gloucester, a title of which the current holder is first cousin to the now-Moyra de Zoete.

But Harriet Sperling's relationship with Peter Phillips - which was confirmed last month, with a source confirming he had met someone "recently" and they were "spending time together" - would be their family's closest brush yet with the highest echelons of the aristocracy.

The source continued:"They were laughing, taking selfies, she was taking pictures with the kids.

"At one point they were posing together as a couple and Savannah [Phillips's daughter] was taking pictures of them.

"It was totally relaxed, while Peter and Harriet were chatting, Isla [also Phillips's daughter] was off playing somewhere, Savannah was with a group of pals watching the polo from the stands and then they would all come together now and again."