The Palace is moving to avoid another royal baby circus
Unamused by the protracted, indecorous media frenzy that attended the birth of Prince George two summers ago, Buckingham Palace and the London Police have agreed the round-the-clock soap opera outside St. Mary’s Hospital will not be repeated later this month, when the Duchess of Cambridge gives birth to a son or daughter who will become fourth in the line of succession.
To try to provide greater dignity this time around, camera crews, journalists, the curious and Union Jack-clad super royalists have been banned from massing across the street from the Lindo Wing of the hospital until the duchess goes into labour. Because of this edict, instead of hundreds of media from around the world jamming the sidewalk and blocking emergency vehicles, as they did for weeks before George’s birth, the area was empty earlier this week, except for a few ambulances, a doctor’s car and a small group of men visiting a patient who were smoking cigarettes and having a quiet chat on the street.
But make no mistake. The British media are still hugely interested in this impending royal birth and have been since the duchess revealed on Sept. 8 she was once again pregnant. Every day lately has brought a fresh deluge of largely speculative nonsense about Prince William, the duchess, Prince George and his new sibling, whose due date is said to be April 25, although there has been no official confirmation of that.
Among the many tidbits, is that it costs between $10,000 and $13,500 to give birth at St. Mary’s, where the maternity ward in which Diana, Princess of Wales, gave birth to William, has variously been described as relatively austere or sumptuous, with satellite television, a dedicated kitchen and a long wine list.
As it did for Prince George, a silver penny is being struck by the Royal Mint to commemorate this birth, too. The coin will be given as a present to the 2,000 or so other babies born in Britain on the same day. To celebrate the occasion, the Mint is also producing a five pound coin that it intends to sell for 80 pounds.
The popular press has it the duchess has told friends that she thinks she is carrying a girl. However, as during the first pregnancy, Prince William and his wife apparently have asked not to be told in advance the sex of their second born. This uncertainty has been an additional boon to British bookmakers who will take bets on almost anything.
The most likely date for the birth, if the punters are to believed, is April 20. If it is a girl, the bettors clearly favour Elizabeth or Alice, names with long histories in the royal family, with longer odds on other names with a family connection such as Charlotte, Victoria and Diana. If it is a boy, James is narrowly preferred over Arthur and Alexander.
But the popular press has been touting Samantha, in honour of Sam Waley-Cohen, a Grand National jockey and close friend of the duchess who helped get her and William back together again after they had a falling out when they were dating.
If it is a boy, the infant will likely be circumcised according to a learned article in The Daily Telegraph about a family tradition George I was said to have brought over with him in the 18th century from Germany.
There has been conjecture about the difficulties William may face if Kate goes into labour prematurely as there will be no helicopter on standby to speed him to London as there was two years ago. The 32-year-old prince, who has left his first job as an air force chopper pilot, is expected to be in one of three towns each a couple of hours from London training to become an air ambulance pilot until shortly before the due date.
Newspapers have helpfully provided maps so anxious readers can chart William’s potential path from these places to St. Mary’s or to hospital maternity wings on standby in Reading and King’s Lynn in case Kate begins to have contractions while visiting her parents or the couple’s country mansion in Norfolk.
The duchess was in labour for 10 hours at St. Mary’s before she gave birth to Prince George Alexander Louis on July 22, 2013. With Prince William at the wheel of a Range Rover, the new family left the hospital for their nearby city home at Kensington Palace one day later.