When Queen Elizabeth II sat on the throne, no one in the royal family would have considered spending Easter Sunday anywhere but at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. With her passing, times have changed, and the palace dynamics are constantly in flux.
This year, Prince William and Kate Middleton took a page from last year’s Easter playbook and opted for a holiday at their country home, Anmer Hall, according to Hello! magazine. They were seen with their three children, Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6, and Kate’s parents, Carole and Michael Middleton at a service at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham.
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Catherine, Princess of Wales and Prince William, Prince of Wales attend the EE BAFTA Film Awards 2023 at The Royal Festival Hall on February 19, 2023 in London, England.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images.
The decision to forgo spending the holiday with King Charles III and Queen Camilla is what an Us Weekly source is calling a “big deal.” They explained what this means for Charles and William as they each try and establish their method of leadership.
“It’s royal tradition for the family to attend this together,” the insider added. “Everyone understood the family not attending last year when Kate was sick but there’s been a lot of raised eyebrows at the palace about William’s decision to skip again this year. It feels like a deliberate move and even a snub.”
The Prince of Wales appears to be making moves for his role as the future king apart from his father’s current reign. A recent example was his decision to hire his own legal team, Mishcon de Reya, that represented Princess Diana during her divorce from the then-Prince Charles.
“William wanted to strike out on his own. He did not want to continue using his father’s lawyers. It’s as simple as that. He wants to be his own man,” a source told the Daily Mail.
Prince William wants to come out from behind King Charles’ shadow years ahead of his coronation. It is a decisive move and shows that he’s ready to modernize the monarchy.
“The next few years will see him thinking through what kind of monarch he wants to be and what kind of monarch the country will need to have in the mid-21st Century,” historian Sir Anthony Seldon told the BBC in June 2024. “He has been defining his own agenda…”
So, skipping Easter services might not seem like a big deal, but it’s Prince William’s way of asserting himself in the royal family.
Before you go, click here to see more photos of Prince William & Kate Middleton through the years.
