Britain’s new prince enjoys privacy, for now
After the frenzy and the flashguns, Britain’s new royal baby and his parents spent Wednesday out of the media spotlight. But for how long?
Palace officials say Prince William and his wife Kate are spending “private and quiet time for them to get to know their son” — and, perhaps, to figure out ways to shield him from intense public and media interest. They named the boy George Alexander Louis on Wednesday.
At least the relationship got off to a good start. The baby slept through his first photo op outside London’s St. Mary’s Hospital, while his parents beamed as they chatted easily with reporters. For a royal family that has had a fraught relationship with the media, it was a positive sign.
“I thought, is this an Oscar-winning performance?” said Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine. “But I think they were so genuinely overjoyed that they wanted to show off the baby.”
After leaving the hospital, the couple introduced their son to his uncle, Prince Harry, and to great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, keen to see the baby before she started her annual summer vacation in Scotland.
Then they headed to see Kate’s parents in their village near London— pretty much like any regular family.
There has been so much royal drama in the last few decades that it’s easy to forget that William had, by royal standards, a relatively normal childhood.
His parents’ troubled marriage may have ended in divorce, but Prince Charles and Princess Diana were devoted parents who tried to spend as much time as possible with their children— albeit with an assist from nannies. The queen was sometimes away on official tours for months at a time when her children were young, but Charles and Diana took William along on a tour to Australia when he was just 9 months old.
The queen was educated at home, in keeping with royal tradition. But she sent her own children to boarding schools, and Charles and Diana did the same with William and his younger brother Harry— choosing Eton, one of the biggest and most prestigious boys’ schools in the country.
“William’s childhood was normal by uppermiddle-class standards— private schools, expensive holidays, McDonald’s in a smart part of town as opposed to a grotty part of town,” said royal historian Robert Lacey. “I think really one is going to see more of the same.”
Lacey thinks Kate’s middle- class background will also help ensure her son gets a broader world view than some of his royal predecessors.
The baby’s maternal grandparents, Carole and Michael Middleton, are self-made millionaires who run a party-planning business from the village of Bucklebury, west of London.
“From Buckingham Palace to Bucklebury — these are the two elements that will be in this child’s upbringing,” Lacey said.
Lacey noted that on Kate’s side the baby prince had “a grandfather who started off dispatching aircraft from Heathrow Airport and a grandmother who started out as a flight attendant and grew up on a council estate, who came from coal-mining stock in Durham (in northern England). That is all funneling through.”
Historian Antonia Fraser noted on BBC radio that the Middletons also provide an example of marital stability — “unlike so many royal marriages recently.”