Princess Kate Middleton has revealed what questions her children - nine-year-old Prince George, seven-year-old Princess Charlotte, and four-year-old Prince Louis - expressed during the preparations for their great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
On Thursday, the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived at Windsor Guildhall, marking their first royal engagement since the Queen’s funeral on 19 September.
After expressing her appreciation for the volunteers and operational staff who helped organise the event, she addressed how her three children had watched the funeral preparations take place.
“When we’ve been doing the school run, we’ve been able to see the preparations going up. We’ve seen it growing,” she said at Windsor, as reported by Hello!.
“It must have been quite a mission,” the royal continued. “Having gone backwards and forwards last week, we could see it slowly growing. It seemed so well organised.”
The royal went on to recall how George, Charlotte and Louis were “beady-eyed,” as they noticed security drones flying around Windsor, prior to the funeral. She went on to share that after her children spotted the drones, they were prompted to ask her and husband Prince William about it.
On Thursday, Kate also addressed how she felt the Queen’s presence around her, following the announcement of the monarch’s death on 8 September.
To a crowd of funeral staff and volunteers, Prince William shared that when he was in Balmoral, as that’s where his grandmother died, he saw five “rainbows” in the sky. In response, his wife noted that the rainbows were a sign, as she said: “Her Majesty was looking down on us.”
Additionally, Kate and William thanked a group of supporters who were at Windsor to pay tribute to the Queen and watched the procession of her coffin up to the castle, before her service on Monday.
The Prince and Princess also arrived at Windsor Guildhall in all black, as they are still observing the royal mourning period for the Queen, which will end on Monday.
Kate’s royal engagement on Thursday wasn’t the first time that she shared details about her children, in the wake of the Queen’s death. Speaking to well-wishers outside of Windsor Castle on 10 September, Kate revealed how Louis reacted to his great-grandmother’s passing.
“My little Louis - this is just so sweet - said ‘Mummy, don’t worry because she’s now with great-grandpa,’” she recalled.
She also spoke to Australia’s governor-general David Hurley at a meeting in Buckingham Palace ahead of the Queen’s funeral, and was quoted as saying that Louis is asking her a lot of questions about the monarch’s death.
“The younger one is now asking questions like, ‘do you think we can still play these games when we go to Balmoral and things like that, because she’s not going to be there?,’” Hurley said.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are currently living in Windsor with their children, after moving out of their official residence in Kensington Palace in London at the end of the summer.
