There are certain rites of passage for anyone who joins the Royal Family, including the first Christmas at Sandringham House and, just as importantly, the first trip to Balmoral Castle. The monarch traditionally enjoys a summer break at this historic home and hosts plenty of their fellow royals.
It’s likely the Prince and Princess of Wales will spend some time in Scotland before Prince George, Charlotte and Louis’s school holidays end. They’ve been going for years and one of the early times Kate visited, she was reportedly granted a special privilege by Queen Elizabeth.
The late Queen apparently "went out of her way" to put her at ease, according to royal author Katie Nicholl in her book, Kate: The Future Queen. As per The Mirror, Katie wrote that the Princess was allowed to take photographs at Balmoral.
"Until now the Queen had met Kate only fleetingly at the wedding of Peter and Autumn Phillips [Princess Anne’s son and his former wife], but she went out of her way to make her feel welcome, giving her permission to take pictures at Balmoral," Katie claimed.
This might sound like a lovely, albeit unremarkable, move by Queen Elizabeth, but the royal expert suggested that it was actually quite unusual. In Katie’s opinion, it indicated a huge level of trust and warmth on behalf of the late monarch.
She alleged, "As a woman who has lived her entire life in the public eye, the Queen rarely lets her guard down, and very few apart from her family and closest friends get to see the real Elizabeth."
The Princess of Wales is an avid amateur photographer and a lot of the snaps shared for Prince George, Charlotte and Louis’s birthdays over the years were taken by her.
Queen Elizabeth supposedly giving Kate permission to take pictures of her home and potentially of the royals enjoying down-time, is momentous given how much Balmoral meant to her.
The Princess of Wales soon became the family’s go-to picture-taker there and her snap of the Queen and Prince Philip with seven of their great-grandchildren is an iconic photo that was released following the late Prince’s passing in 2021. It’s clear that Kate’s photography skills are valued by the Royal Family and the Queen’s reported gesture was an early indication of the close bond they’d go on to forge.
The Princess of Wales might have been going to Balmoral for years, but she didn’t spend the festive season at Sandringham for the first time until the Christmas after she and Prince William got married.
It’s thought to be tradition that only spouses would go - and this was the case for the Waleses. That first Christmas was a big moment for Kate and she recalled on ITV’s Our Queen at Ninety documentary that she'd worried about what to give her grandmother-in-law.
She explained, "I was thinking, 'Gosh, what should I give her?’ I thought back to what I would give my own grandparents. And I thought, 'I'll make her something.' Which could have gone horribly wrong. But I decided to make my granny's recipe of chutney."
"I noticed the next day that it was on the table," Kate said, reflecting on Queen Elizabeth’s thoughtfulness once again. "I think such a simple gesture went such a long way for me and I’ve noticed since she’s done that on lots of occasions."
