Lady Louise Windsor is flourishing at university and has thrown herself into acting as never-seen-before pics show her rehearsing with her fellow students

She may be only 16th in line to the throne but Lady Louise Windsor already looks every inch a queen of the stage.

The 21-year-old daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh has thrown herself into acting while studying English at university in Scotland. In never-before-seen snaps Lady Louise is seen rehearsing and acting in a selection of am-dram plays alongside other students.

Royal sources say Lady Louise “adores acting” and has thrown herself into a number of parts this year, including Sir Oliver Surface in the comedy School for Scandal. She also performed in Oscar Wilde play An Ideal Husband.

Lady Louise as Sir Oliver Surface ( 
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She signed up to the St Andrews University performing arts group Mermaids, while her boyfriend Felix da Silva-Clamp also treads the boards. In pursuing acting, Lady Louise is following in the footsteps of her father, Prince Edward, who is 61 tomorrow

The Duke of Edinburgh also enjoyed acting in his university days at Cambridge as part of its Light ­Entertainment Society. Later he worked as a theatre production assistant at Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Company and went on to form his own company, Ardent Productions, creating dramas and documentaries. The aspiring actress – the youngest granddaughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II – is known in royal circles for her humour and versatility.

Lady Louise has thrown herself into acting like her dad did ( 
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One source said: “Lady Louise is a delightful young woman and a favourite of everyone in the family. She has made a really solid group of friends at university and is a credit to herself.” And a review of one of her plays called her part a “fantastic edition”.

Critic Olivia Durie-Mains said: “Our narrator, Louise Mountbatten-Windsor, consistently treated us to engaging and well-elocuted storytelling.”

Louise is known in royal circles for her humour and versatility ( 
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As the daughter of the son of a then-sovereign, Lady Louise was entitled to be known as Princess Louise, while James, born in 2007, is actually a prince. But Edward and mum Sophie Rhys-Jones decided against this, with it announced on their wedding day that any children would not use the HRH style, and instead adopt the courtesy titles of the child of an earl.

PR executive Sophie married Edward, Elizabeth II and the late Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip’s youngest son, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in June 1999, in a continental-style evening service where guests were told not to wear hats. The couple became the Earl and Countess of Wessex, and last year celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.

Louise is at university in Scotland ( 
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BACKGRID)Sophie had a close relationship with the late Queen, who had great affection for her daughter-in-law. She also shared a love of carriage driving with father-in-law Philip, and was devastated when both the Queen and the duke died just over a year apart. Edward is the only one of the Queen’s four children not to have got divorced.