Some traditions are carried through the ages, but others are neatly dropped, such as the presence of the Home Secretary at the royal birth to ensure the true heir was not replaced with a usurper. Here we chart the extraordinary changes in how the royals have arrived into the world over the centuries. Prince Charles On the evening of November 14, 1948, Prince Charles was born in Buckingham Palace’s Belgian Suite. The Queen Mother with the then Princess Elizabeth, aged eight months, (pictured left) before anyone thought she might one day be Queen. Right, Princess Elizabeth with baby prince Charles at his christening at Buckingham Palace in December 1948
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Diana broke with tradition by choosing to have her baby in hospital rather than a palace
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Prince Philip arrived on a kitchen table in a rented summer villa called ‘Mon Repos’ in Corfu
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Until the middle of the 17th century, royal childbirth was a strictly women-only affair
It had been a long and arduous birth and our @placeholder-to-be had endured 30 hours in labour.
He was, in fact, a nervous expectant father, and after the game went for a swim in the @placeholder pool.