The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh have thanked well-wishers for their “many kind and lovely messages” as they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary.

In a joint personal tweet on the royal family’s official social media account, Edward and Sophie wrote: “We are so grateful for the many kind and lovely messages we have received on our silver wedding anniversary.

The message was signed “Edward & Sophie”, and accompanied by a new photograph of the couple by Chris Jelf, showing the duke and duchess sat holding hands together on stone steps, amid blooms of delicate white and pink flowers.

It followed another affectionate portrait of the duke and duchess released to mark their 25 years of marriage on Wednesday.

Edward was shown embracing his wife, standing with his arms around her waist, with the duchess’s hands resting on her husband’s, and their heads close together.

The couple were dressed down in the relaxed shot, also taken by Mr Jelf, in the gardens of their Bagshot Park home in Surrey, with Sophie’s tan suede jacket complementing the colour of Edward’s tweed gilet.

Edward married Sophie Rhys-Jones in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on June 19 1999, in a continental-style evening service where guests were told not to wear hats.

The couple became the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

In March, Sophie surprised Edward with a tearful tribute ahead of his 60th birthday, taking to the stage in Leeds to call him  “the best of fathers, the most loving of husbands” and “still my best friend”.

In a television interview, Edward described his wife as his “rock”, adding: “I’m incredibly lucky that I found Sophie and that she found me.”

Edward is the youngest of the late Queen and Prince Philip’s four children, and the only one not to have got divorced.

Romance blossomed when Edward and public relations professional Sophie met at a real tennis event in the early 1990s.

They now have two children, Lady Louise Windsor, 20, and 16-year-old James – the Earl of Wessex.

Edward and Sophie have become a key part of the slimmed-down working monarchy, following the stepping down of the Duke of Sussex and the Duke of York, the King’s accession, and amid Charles and the Princess of Wales’s cancer diagnoses.

Charles handed his youngest brother his late father’s Duke of Edinburgh title on his 59th birthday in 2023 in keeping with the late Queen and Philip’s wishes, in recognition of his commitment to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award youth scheme.