how Elizabeth II coached him for the job of king

Elizabeth II maintained special relationships with family members. Few of them can claim to have had strong ties with the queen. Her son, King Charles, for example, had to make an appointment with his mother’s secretaries in order to be able to talk to her. But this is not the case of Prince William who, for his part, lived for a long time moments of complicity with his grandmotherespecially in childhood.

Katie Nicholl, author of Kate: The Future Queen, a writer always well informed about the British royal family, recently confided in the closeness between the Duke of Cambridge and Elizabeth II, who died on September 8. “The Queen plays a very special dual role in William’s life. She is his sovereign, but also a very loving grandmother who wants to prepare him for the future.”

A tea and lunch ritual at Windsor Castle

Since his boarding school at Eton College in 1995, Prince William often took several hours off every Sunday. If young William told his classmates that he was just going to the bathroom, in reality, he was going to visit his grandmother at Windsor Castle. The queen invited him to tea and lunch. She worried about her grandson’s struggles to come to terms with his birthright and status with his peers.

“Then he had a one-on-one time with his grandmother to talk about whatever was on his mind. He could unload on herbut these sessions were also an opportunity for her to mentor and teach him, as her grandfather, George V, had done with her”, explains Katie Nicholl. “They became incredibly close and, at as his respect for her grew, he began to embrace her destiny.”

These Sunday meetings quickly became rituals between the two members of the royal family. The future king, the first heir to the throne after Charles, always had a special place in the heart of the late queen. Moreover, she also forged strong ties with his wife, Kate Middleton, thereafter.