Why Prince George’s royal life will be very different to Prince William’s

Meghan and Harry’s exit as senior royals created a major headache and could have a major impact on one young royal in coming years.

Seven years ago when Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge arrived in the world, the tiny 3.8kg bundle instantly made history. Not only was he destined to be King but his birth marked the end of 400 years of primogeniture, that is male royals taking precedence in the line of succession over their older sisters.

This week on Wednesday, his parents William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge marked his birthday in what has become their standard modus operandi: release a couple of adorable shots of the child in question taken by Kate, just the sort of candid but touching images that parents the world over snap of their (non-regal) tots. It is a strategy that the duchess is reported to have picked up from Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden who after the arrival of her first child Estelle, decided to regularly release images of the bub in exchange for the young family being left largely alone.

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Prince George shown in a snap taken by his mum Kate Middleton to mark his 7th birthday. Picture: THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE / KENSINGTON PALACE / AFP.

The young prince is shown as a happy gap-toothed little boy. Picture: THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE / KENSINGTON PALACE / AFP.

Unlike the image of his sister Charlotte released in May that showed her helping drop off care packages for the elderly during the UK’s lockdown or the one of his younger brother Louis released in April showing him with his hands rainbow painted to celebrate frontline NHS workers, the images of George simply showed him being a little boy, all wonky teeth and a big grin.

The new images of George are just the sort of heartwarming tonic the COVID-scarred UK needs right now and are a nice jolt of feel good PR for the royal family.

But make no mistake: No matter how many Marks and Spencer T-shirts the little boy wears or how earnestly relatable William and Kate labour away to make their family seem, he is far, far from a normal child – and there are potential storm clouds in his future.

The script of how his teenage and young adult years could play out could be facing something of rewrite and his future may be far different from William’s own experience.

The duke attended Eton, before scarpering off for a gap year that included working on an English dairy farm, taking part in British army training exercises and spending ten weeks in Chile teaching children. In 2001 he arrived at St Andrews University in Scotland where he managed to not only meet his future wife (reportedly uttering the eternally Keats-esque words of endearment “wow, Kate’s hot!” when spying her modelling a sheer dress) but enjoying four years of paparazzi-free living thanks to a deal between the palace and Fleet Street.

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Prince William wearing a traditional Eton uniform on first day at the school in September 1995. Picture: AP

Prince William sporting a Union Jack waistcoat at Eton College in 2000.

In his 20, he followed in family tradition and took himself off to Sandhurst to learn how to shoot and do hospital corners before joining the air force and training to be a search and rescue helicopter pilot. Along the way he, and later wife Kate, took on various patronages and undertook a smattering of official duties and tours. It was only in 2017, at the age of 35-years-old, did William (and Kate) base themselves at Kensington Palace and become full-time working members of the royal family.

The William model, if you will, was about giving him some semblance of normalcy while still also helping him slowly adjust to his fate set in 1000 years worth of regal stone.

That luxury of time is something that George may not get the chance to experience.

Prince William at the controls of a Sea King helicopter in 2011. Picture: AP Photo / John Stillwell / PA.

Only when he was 35 did Prince William become a full-time working member of the royal family. The Cambridges are shown here in a visit to Canada in 2016. Picture: AFP PHOTO.

The royal family is an ageing institution, with eight of members 70 or over. When Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex sullenly upped sticks in January and decamped to North America, the royal family not only lost their most charismatic, crowd pleasers but they lost 50% of their working members under the age of 40 leaving William, Kate and their vast collection of sensible high street label jumpers as the torchbearers of royal youth. (And at 38, they are hardly spring chickens.)

Without being overly morbid, at some stage in the next decade the Queen will sadly pass away, with Charles ascending to the throne and William being invested as the Prince of Wales. This period of palace upheaval and transition will be a particularly dangerous time for the royal family given the lingering ambivalence in some quarters towards Charles as King. Likewise, courtiers are said to be concerned that the changeover period will be ripe for fomenting republican sentiment not only in the UK and the Commonwealth.

Making the situation more complex will be the Sussexes setting up their new, quasi-court in Los Angeles, a celebrity-studded affair that will stand in direct contrast to the comparatively drab lot left behind in London. The house of Windsors has only so many aces up their sleeve and George may be the strongest card they can play.

Meghan and Harry’s new LA life may mean that more royal duties land in Prince George’s lap at a tender age. Picture: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP.

In the years to come, public support for the monarchy will be tested and to meet that challenge, there is every chance that the Windsors will have no choice but to deploy George when he is only a teenager. (There is some precedent for this – at the age of only 17, Prince Charles undertook 50 official engagements while studying in Australia.)

The Windsors are going to be in dire need of projecting a youthful image and injecting some pep given that in a decade, the median age of working members of the royal family will be just a smidgen over 75-years-old. They are desperately going to need the teenage prince out there posing for selfies, hugging Welsh octogenarians and wowing crowds, both to shore up the potentially flagging popularity of the royal family and to counter the image of them as a bunch of relics.

For William and Kate, in the years to come they face the decidedly tricky proposition of somehow striking a balance between protecting their son and offering him some of the privacy that William enjoyed while also meeting their obligation to ensure the longevity of the monarchy and to shore up potentially wavering public opinion.

The Cambridge kids could face taking on immense royal duties in their teens. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images.

If George’s future does look more like his grandfather’s than his father’s then that could mean in only nine or ten short years the teenager could face starting his one and only career, irrespective of his wonts, talents or personal interests.

While other children in George’s year at his school Thomas’ Battersea are free to daydream and imagine what they might do when they grow up (Chelsea real estate agent! Belgravia wine merchant! Part owner of a diamond mine!) he will never have that luxury or joy. Not only that, while child labour might have been outlawed in 1933, George’s working life could start in less than a decade, the same age when his schoolmates will be dreaming up ways to borrow their mum’s Harrods charge card to illicitly buy gin and acne cream.

I hope George had a wonderful birthday and I hope he is having a truly wonderful childhood because like it or not the clock is ticking.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.