Born in 1982, William didn’t even really know that he was second in line to the throne until other kids asked him about it at school, his parents wanting him to focus on the business of being a kid. Diana would tell him that all those photographers just wanted pictures of her and to pay them no mind.
Charles, whose grandfather King George VI was on the throne when he was born in 1948, also had no real idea of his place in the monarchy until he was a bit older and realized why people were so interested in everything he did.
“I think it’s something that dawns on you with the most ghastly inexorable sense,” Charles said in an interview on the occasion of his 21st birthday in 1969. “And slowly you get the idea that you have a certain duty and responsibility.”
Following his split from Diana in 1992, he felt “very strongly” that then 10-year-old William and 8-year-old Harry “should be protected as much as possible from being dragged from pillar to post,” saying, per biographer Sally Bedell Smith, “I don’t want them to do too many official things until they have to.”
