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Kate and William ‘told George he’ll be King on 7th birthday’, royal author claims

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Updated on June 26, 2021

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According to a new book, Prince George discovered he would one day become King when he celebrated his seventh birthday last year.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have previously avoided addressing their oldest son’s “life of future royal service and duty” in order to provide him with a “normal family upbringing.”

According to his father’s desires, the young Prince, the oldest son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, had his royal ancestry revealed to him somewhat later in life than is customary.

Lacey writes in his new book, Battle of Brothers, that William “made no secret of his wish to spare his firstborn the casual initiation – or non-initiation – that he felt he had suffered as a child.”

‘William’s aim as a father, the prince stressed, was to give his son “a normal family upbringing”, enabling the monarchy “to stay relevant and keep up with modern times”.’

According to Lacey, Prince William, 39, and Kate Middleton, 39, intended to sit George down at a “controlled moment of their choice” at the age of 7 because of “William’s unhappiness at the haphazard fashion in which the whole business of his royal destiny had buzzed around his head from the start.”

If the discussion took place around Prince George’s seventh birthday, that implies he had no idea he was a future king when he appeared in the December 2019 ‘Four Monarchs’ picture with the Queen, 95, his father William, and grandpa Prince Charles, 72.

The royal biographer, who now serves as an official consultant on Netflix’s “The Crown,” has revised his book “Battle of Brothers: William and Harry – The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult” with additional chapters and information. The British historian addressed the royal family’s continuing problems in the original book, which was released in 2020.

“There’ll be a time and a place to bring George up and understand how he fits in in the world,” Wills told BBC royal reporter Nicholas Witchell.

William had said that he intended to provide his kid with a “secure, stable, environment” and offer him “as much love as I can as a father”

“Right now it’s just a case of keeping a secure, stable environment around him and showing as much love as I can as a father… I want to bring my children up as good people with the idea of service and duty to others,” he said.

Despite the royal child’s extraordinary circumstances, Nicholl said that “the true enormity of what his life will one day be isn’t something he’s fully aware of yet.”

“I think George understands, like William did from a very early age, that he’s different from his younger brother and sister and that he’ll have a different future,” she added. “After all, he gets taken away to do photoshoots with Her Majesty the Queen, so he must notice he’s been singled out.”

George is the third in line to the throne, behind his paternal grandfather, Prince Charles, and his father, Prince William. Princess Charlotte, George’s 6-year-old younger sister, is fourth in line, followed by Louis, George’s 3-year-old brother, who is fifth.

Lacey claims that the photograph of the ‘Four Monarchs,’ which George sat for with The Queen, Prince Charles, and Prince William in December 2019, was shot without George realizing the significance.

‘The prince had been placed on a rep-carpeted step in order to bring him up closer to the level of his great-grandmother,’ Lacey recalled in his book on the picture.

‘What a fascinating and historic image to remind us of the essence of the royal system! The current monarch with three future monarchs. All the living heirs – and not a suggestion of a “spare”.

‘According to insiders, this formal photograph, taken in the Buckingham Palace Throne Room a week before Christmas 2019, was the idea of Prince Charles, anxious to promote his cause of the “slimmed-down monarchy”.’