Kate Middleton makes huge and historic Prince George call

A new book has revealed that the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided something remarkable about their eldest son and future King.

COMMENT

Serious question time: Do you think Bentley will ever make a self-driving car for the royal family? Like when they spent untold sums creating the one-off, specially engineered State Limousine they made for the late Queen? (‘New car, sorted. That’s another job done Butters.’)

I ask because, right now, the question of where the royal family will be in the years and decades to come has never been more pressing.

Currently, the royal watching eyes are on the London Clinic, as Kate the Princess of Wales recovers from abdominal surgery while King Charles is scheduled to go under the knife to be treated for an enlarged prostate.

The UK papers have fallen over themselves to most energetically fret and to most energetically play cheerleader and all of this has meant that the huge decision that William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales have reportedly made about son Prince George has been thoroughly overlooked.

The huge decision that William and Kate have reportedly made about son Prince George has been thoroughly overlooked. Picture: Samir Hussein/WireImage

Esteemed biographer Robert Hardman has a new book about to come out, New King, New Court: Charles III, the Inside Story, for which he reportedly interviewed palace staffers, royal friends and had access to royal records. Which is to say, this is not the copy and paste jobbie often put out and sold as a ‘biography’.

Much of the publicity about Hardman’s book has so far been centred on his revelation that the late Queen was left furious over Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s announcement that they had her blessing to use her nickname for their own daughter, now Princess Lilibet.

However, Hardman’s book has another whopping bit of news about one of the younger members of the royal family that could have much, much farther reaching and serious consequences.

Young Prince George is currently only ten, which happens to be the same age as when Richard II took the throne. (George will turn 11 in July.)

Luckily for him in this day and age, we are less keen on forcing primary schoolers onto thrones, so can rest easy knowing that no one is going to drag him out of morning Latin and make him start neatly printing his signature on government bills. (It is unknown by this writer whether the prince has his pen licence or not.)

That’s to say, he’s fine for now but Duty and Responsibility, all weighty and ponderous await.

At some stage his roster of public royal outings will be expanded from carefully managing instances with his parents, Prince William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and he will be posted off to Cardiff for a lifeboat christening or some such. (That was his mother’s first actual official outing after all.)

Prince George trying his hand at archery last May. Picture: Daniel Leal / POOL / AFP

Noblesse oblige – and the future – comes for everyone.

In 2020, the absconding of George’s uncle and aunt, Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the previous ousting of his great-uncle Prince Andrew, did raise the possibility that the young prince might be press ganged into service sooner rather than later.

However, now we have Charles III giving us a whole other view of how William and Kate will handle their son’s transition to working life.

According to Hardman, “Prince George will not be expected to undertake any royal duties until he is well into his 20s.”

If we take “well into his 20s” to mean, say, age 25, then that will be 14 years from now and we will be in the year 2038. Hence, will George be allowed to take the self-driving Bentley?

Hardman writes, according to the Mirror, that the Prince of Wales views it as his “paramount duty” to prepare his son for what lies ahead.

But, at the same time, “Prince William had a significant degree of autonomy in his university education, his engagement with the armed forces, and his introduction to regular duties. He is determined that Prince George should have a similar if not greater involvement in the way he develops his own royal role.”

By the time George is 25 years old and busily learning the correct ribbon-cutting technique, his grandfather the King will be 90. Picture: Stephen Pond/Getty Images

Such is the Prince and Princess of Wales’s slowly-slowly approach that the son’s participation in the King’s coronation last year, per Hardman, was his choice and not foisted upon him, something that Richard II would have loved, I’m sure. (No one gave him a choice between playing with his mates and taunting the on-call jester than having to put down the Peasants Revolt when he was just 14 years old did they?)

A Palace veteran told Hardman of the Waleses’ approach: “Before he was even made a page at the coronation, William and Catherine wanted to ask him if he felt comfortable about it because he was the youngest. It turned out he was keen.”

“Prince George will not be expected to undertake any royal duties until he is well into his 20s.” Picture: Pascal Guyot / AFP

Keen he might have been but what must have been running through the kid’s head during his grandfather’s crowning, the most over-the-top bit of theatre since Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber had that idea one time to do Cats in space? (Well, I’m guessing.)

One day George too will make that same long walk down the aisle of the Abbey to be dappled with Holy oil and have a Britain’s Got Talent runner-up belt out Handel’s Zadok the Priest. The gravity of that knowledge would have to weigh – and oh-so heavily.

The implications of the Waleses’ 2038 decision could become apparent much sooner.

As of 2024, the remaining clutch of working members of the royal family are aged to say the least, and by the time that George is 25 years old and busily learning the correct ribbon-cutting technique, his grandfather the King will be 90.

Prince George with his father in 2015 in London, England. Picture: Anwar Hussein/WireImage

By 2038, aside from the King and Queen Camilla, the only other HRHs who will still be plugging away will be the 50-something Waleses and Prince Edward and Sophie, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, both 74 years old.

That’s it. The end. No more people. What sort of state might the monarchy be in by then? Just how much support for the crown will this heavily reduced handful of Windsors be able to sustain?

What that means is that if William and Kate do follow through with this George 2038 plan, they will be taking a huge risk. They will be gambling that, pretty much, they alone can keep The Firm afloat and stave off the advances of Republic UK, while simultaneously sailing into the strong headwinds of the crown’s historical connections to slavery and the inevitable fragmentation of the Commonwealth.

If William and Kate do follow through with this George 2038 plan, they will be taking a huge risk. Picture: Adrian Dennis / AFP

Geewhizzikers that’s an ask I am not convinced they can pull off, just the two of them.

The temptation here is that for William and Kate (and Charles), getting the next generation and some new Windsor blood out to do a few walkabouts would go some way to maintaining, if nothing else, public fascination with the royal family and possibly public approval too.

Maybe though we are all brooding about nothing here and by 2038 we will all be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland after sentient AI has assumed control of all the missile systems and the self-service check-outs. I’m not sure what is worse: That or George having to one day pretend to care about the Chelsea Flower Show.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 year’s experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.