Arriving to meet her new brother a few hours after his birth, Princess Charlotte captivated crowds and the world’s gathered media with her spontaneous smile and expert royal wave, which she kept up for almost the entire walk from the car to the hospital doors. Prince George, holding their father’s other hand, looked shy in comparison. Before going in, the little princess turned around for a last wave and grin, to a chorus of “awwwwws” from onlookers.
It’s hardly the kind of poise you usually see in a toddler who’s not yet 3 (her birthday is May 2). But Charlotte has always displayed confidence beyond her age. When she was only five months old, Prince William described her as “ladylike,” and when she was 1, her mum noted, no doubt with regal understatement, “she has got quite a feisty side.”
Fittingly, her brother’s birth will not bump Charlotte’s place in the line of succession—a history-making move, since the Succession to the Crown act, which favoured male heirs, was changed in 2013. As the Duchess of Cambridge once said, her daughter is the “one in charge.” Don’t we love it
