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Prince William and Kate Middleton thought it would be “simpler and easier” to do it this way.
The Gist
- Prince George Alexander Louis—who turns 13 today—was born on July 22, 2013 to proud parents Prince William and Kate Middleton.
- The future king’s birth announcement broke royal protocol.
- Before the traditional easel was placed in front of Buckingham Palace announcing George’s birth, the Prince and Princess of Wales—then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—announced his arrival via email and social media.
When Prince George—the eldest child of Prince William and Kate Middleton—was born on July 22, 2013, his birth announcement broke royal protocol.
Up to that point, the traditional protocol for announcing a royal birth was for a notice to be posted on an easel in front of Buckingham Palace, according to Hello!. While that did ultimately happen, the Prince and Princess of Wales—then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge—wanted a “more modern, quicker method,” too, per the outlet.
The future king was born at 4:24 p.m. that Monday weighing 8 lbs., 6 oz. Shortly after, “A minute before Big Ben struck 8:30 p.m. and dusk fell upon London [on July 22, 2013], the couple gave their aides permission to issue a statement via email and Twitter [now known as X] announcing the birth,” royal correspondent Katie Nicholl wrote in Vanity Fair. “It was a last minute change of plan.”
“William and Kate decided that it would be ‘simpler and easier’ to announce the news via email and social media,” she continued. The tweet from Clarence House read, “Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4:24 p.m.”
Ahead of the announcement, William called his grandmother Queen Elizabeth on a specially encrypted phone to tell her the good news. Up next was calling Kate’s parents Carole Middleton and Michael Middleton, William’s father Prince Charles, his brother Prince Harry, and Kate’s sister Pippa Middleton and brother James Middleton.
After meeting baby George at the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital, grandmother Carole told TV cameras gathered outside that George—whose name hadn’t been made public yet—was “absolutely beautiful.”
“They are both doing really well, and we are so thrilled,” she said of Kate and George.
The birth bulletin was eventually mounted outside of Buckingham Palace, which read, “KENSINGTON PALACE 22nd July, 2013. The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son at 4:24 p.m. today. Her Royal Highness and her child are both well.”
Kate later said on the “Happy Mum, Happy Baby” podcast of the moment George was born that it was “Amazing, amazing. It is extraordinary, as I’ve said. How can the human body do that? It is utterly extraordinary, actually.”
“And he was very sweet,” she added. “And also sort of relieved that he was a happy, healthy boy.”
The new family of three spent the night in the hospital before leaving the next day. “Everything goes in a bit of a blur,” Kate said. “I think—yeah, I did stay in hospital overnight. I remember it was one of the hottest days and night with huge thunderstorms, so I didn’t get a huge amount of sleep, but George did, which was really great.”
In Russell Myers’s biography of the Prince and Princess of Wales called William and Catherine: The Monarchy’s New Era: The Inside Story, Myers wrote about how William and Kate accidentally caused “extraordinary” stress and pressure on their staff because they were so relaxed about how to announce George’s birth to the world. The main issue, according to Myers, was that the couple offered no help or insight into how they wanted the announcement—which eventually broke royal protocol—to go.
Per Hello!, William and Kate’s staff at Kensington Palace were taken aback by the couple’s “incredibly relaxed” demeanor around George’s birth, and courtiers felt pressure to make a perfect announcement about the pair’s first child and heir to the throne. After William and Kate were so nonchalant, staff turned to historical clippings about how to proceed, according to Myers.
“On the surface, they were both incredibly relaxed, which actually made us all slightly more nervous,” a former courtier said. “We genuinely had no idea how the birth should be announced, so we proceeded to get some old documents and newspaper cuttings from the archives, which only complicated matters.”
“The weight of expectation was extraordinary,” the courtier added. “There was no doubt in our minds that this would be a global event, so everything had to be right.”
Eventually, the couple broke protocol through their email and social media announcement ahead of the typical easel announcement. In addition to figuring out how to announce George’s birth, William and Kate’s press office was fielding hundreds of calls from journalists around the globe, and Myers added in his book that only four people knew of the security plans for George’s birth.
Stressful though it may have been for staff, it was a happy occasion, of course. George’s arrival was celebrated with gun salutes, and bells at Westminster Abbey—where William and Kate had married over two years prior on April 29, 2011—tolled continuously for three hours in celebration of the future king’s arrival.
Read the original article on InStyle
