Here's When Princess Charlotte And Prince George Had To Start Bowing To The Queen

Apr 22, 2021 by apost team

As anyone interested in the United Kingdom knows, the royal family is an institution with many archaic, strange and stringent social mores. From wearing hosiery to arriving at occasions in order of rank, the countless written (and unwritten) guidelines could make anyone’s head spin. This shouldn’t come as a major surprise, however. The origins of today’s British monarchy can be traced all the way back to the 10th century, and so there are quite a few rules from hundreds of years ago that persist today.

That’s why it’s particularly impressive that the young children of the royal family also have to remember their manners and stick to a few key rules of etiquette. It’s not every day that a 5-year-old child knows all of the unspoken rules of respectfully addressing an adult — not to mention the queen. One such rule is curtsying and bowing to Queen Elizabeth II. At what age, you might ask, would Princess Charlotte and Prince George be expected to show deference to the queen by curtsying or bowing? The reality is sooner than you might think. In this article, we’ll explore the complex world of royal etiquette by way of the Cambridge kids.

While fans of the royals have no doubt seen Prince William and Kate Middleton bow and curtsey to the queen in public, it wasn’t until fairly recently that Charlotte, 5, and George, 7, had to keep these rules in mind. In a 2018 interview with Hello! magazine, a royal expert explained the intricacies behind this shift.

According to Marlene Eilers Koenig, an internationally recognized royal expert and historian, children of the monarchy are expected to curtsey and bow to the queen “certainly by age five.” It’s likely that the royal family thus expects Charlotte and her older brother to curtsey and bow to the queen, though Prince Louis, 2, is too young. In fact, Hello! reports that Charlotte was spotted curtseying in 2017 while on a royal visit in Poland. With that said, the Cambridge kids are royals themselves, and so it’s not as if they have to show such respect to anyone.

“The only person they will be curtsy or bow to is the sovereign,” Koenig told Hello! in 2015. “A royal highness does not curtsy to another royal highness. Yes, there are articles that state this, but it is not true."

Koenig, who runs the blog Royal Musings, expanded upon her answer, adding that these gestures are simply part of good etiquette and respecting one’s elders.

"Curtseying and bowing is etiquette, nothing to do with precedence,” Koenig said. “You bow or curtsy the first time you see the sovereign and then again when you leave. At Christmas at church, we saw the Cambridges and Prince Harry and Meghan curtsy and bow when the queen arrived and left. Other royals including Charles did not because they had come from Sandringham and had already seen the queen."

If these rules sound strange or strict — especially for 5-year-old kids — then some of the family’s other guidelines might shock you.

For example, even if you’re lucky enough to meet Middleton in person and want her signature as a souvenir, the Duchess of Cambridge is banned from signing autographs. 

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The reasoning behind the long-established rule — one of many seemingly random royal regulations — is that handing out royal signatures to strangers would increase the risk of forgery.

Middleton isn’t the only royal who has to follow the rule either. In fact, the queen, Prince Harry, William and really anyone in the royal family are all forbidden from giving out their signatures, according to Reader’s Digest. Despite the regulation, however, the magazine reports that Prince Charles did give out his autograph back in 2010 after he signed an autograph for a natural disaster victim. But since then, news outlets have yet to report another violation.

Beyond not being able to give out their autographs, Reader’s Digest details a whole slew of strict and seemingly arbitrary royal regulations. Children of the royal family, for example, are banned from playing with certain toys and wearing pants. And let’s say that the Duchess of Cambridge finds herself with a craving for lobster while vacationing off the coast of Cape Cod. Well, according to the rules, the royals are not allowed to eat crustaceans in public.

Again, the logic behind the rule isn’t as ridiculous as you might think. According to The Sun, members of the royal family aren’t only discouraged from eating shellfish while traveling, but also from eating rare meat and drinking tap water — all in service of avoiding food poisoning. And while these rules might seem like silly guidelines from the past that no one follows anymore, The Sun reports that the queen has always stuck to the rules, though younger members of the royal family have had more liberal interpretations of the regulations.

So if you do get the chance to meet a royal, you might want to brush up on your etiquette.

What do you think about royal etiquette? At what age do you think Charlotte and George ought to start curtseying and bowing to the queen? Let us know — and pass this article on to fellow royal fans.