Zara Tindall's secret nephew born in NZ

To his proud mother and father he is a little prince: a fine mop of hair, tiny button nose and two perfect lips pursed in sleep.

His arrival last month delighted first-time parents Felicity and Tristan Wade who, as is the custom these days, published a happy family portrait online, and were duly inundated with good wishes from friends and family.

Or most of them, at least.

For, adorable as he might be, newborn James Wade can expect little acknowledgement from his impeccably well-connected aunt, Zara Tindall, nor from her brother Peter Phillips. And, sadly, he can expect none at all from his own grandfather, Captain Mark Phillips, the former husband of Princess Anne. It is not even clear he knows that James exists.

For the baby's birth just a few weeks ago is a reminder of one of the greatest scandals to have rocked the Royal Family - a story not just of illicit sex and illegitimacy, but of a disgraceful attempt to silence a vulnerable woman.

Felicity is Mark Phillips' lovechild, conceived after a one-night stand with New Zealand art teacher Heather Tonkin in an Auckland hotel room in 1984 while Phillips was still married to the Princess.

This means that Felicity, who has just turned 32, is half-sister to Zara and Peter, the children of Phillips and Princess Anne, and that Felicity's first-born son James is now a 'secret' first cousin to Zara's three-year-old daughter Mia.

Today, Zara, 36, is separated by 12,000 miles and a seemingly insurmountable social gulf from this latest addition to her family, who lives with his mother and British father Tristan in New Zealand.

Yet they are connected by genetics, by appearance and even by a shared love of the equine world.

This article was first published on Dailymail.co.uk and is republished here with permission.