William and Kate’s masterplan for when Prince Louis grows up | Royal | News

He is the little prince with the big personality who always manages to steal the show at royal events. Prince Louis turned eight this week and, to mark the occasion, his parents the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge released a new picture of him.

But what kind of man will the fourth in line to the throne – Louis is the first British prince to be ranked behind an elder sister in the line of succession – grow up to be and what lies ahead for him?

Prince Louis of Wales, named Louis Arthur Charles, was born at the £7,000-a-night luxury Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, London, on April 23, 2018. He lived at Kensington Palace and Anmer Hall in Norfolk during his early childhood and made his Trooping the Colour debut in 2019 as a baby.

Over the years, Louis has become a royal fan favourite. Whether he’s pulling faces at the Platinum Jubilee Pageant or dancing a merry jig to the band at Trooping the Colour, he always knows how to entertain the crowds, In fact, both his mother Princess Catherine and sister Princess Charlotte are often spotted trying to rein in his mischievous behaviour.

“From the moment he appeared on that Jubilee balcony Louis was a natural performer, a joker, a gift to every photographer who ever pointed a lens at him,” says royal author Robert Jobson, the bestselling writer of The Windsor Legacy.

“The faces, the finger wagging, the hand clamped over his mother’s mouth when she tried to tell him off [at Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022]. He was a one boy show and he knew it.”

Which may be down to his place as the younger sibling to Prince George, 12, and Princess Charlotte, 10, reckons parenting expert and family therapist Meri Wallace, author of Birth Order Blues.

“The third-born enters a household with parents who have had years of experience in raising children, and feel more relaxed,” she says. “As a result, the third born is often a calmer, more easy-going child. The youngest tends to be smiley and charming and gets a lot of attention for his sunny disposition.”

Robert Jobson agrees, adding that Louis has “never been short of an audience”.

“He is not afraid to take the mickey out of his older brother either, mimicking George swishing back his hair, the kind of thing younger brothers have always done and always will,” he continues. “It is that irreverence that makes him so watchable.”

Dr Charlotte Armitage, a psychologist and family dynamics and child development expert and author of Generation Zombie says the fact that Louis is so playful in public is testament to the way his parents are bringing him up.

“How Louis behaves in the public eye is testament to the psychological safety of the environment that he is raised in,” she says.

“It appears that he has been raised by parents who are present and aware of the unique stressors that their children are being exposed to and have tried to protect them as much as possible from the adverse impact that being in the public eye could have.

“Louis appears to be playful and comfortable with his mother, father and grandparents in public which suggests a sense of safety and comfort with his parents, siblings and the wider family unit.”

However, as the third child in the family, comparisons may inevitably be drawn with that other once handsome, cheeky playful prince, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, who was his late mother Queen Elizabeth’s favourite.

“Some will compare him to child Prince Andrew,” Jobson says. “Both third children, both handsome, both naturals in front of a camera. But that is where it ends.

“Andrew grew up knowing he had been born to a reigning monarch, the first British sovereign in a hundred years to have a child while sitting on the throne.

“His playground was the corridors of Buckingham Palace. It gave him a sense of entitlement he never shook off. He was quite domineering over his younger brother Edward.”

Prince Louis by contrast, has been afforded a more “normal” upbringing by his parents, with the Middleton family’s middle class influence coming into play.

Jobson adds: “Louis grew up in a four-bedroom house in Windsor in the Great Park. He goes to school, kicks a football in the garden, has a big sister who bosses him about.

“William and Catherine are hands-on, present, very deliberate about the life they are giving their children. They have seen what a troubled royal life looks like from the inside. They won’t repeat those mistakes.”

“As long as Louis is given the opportunity to find his purpose and value, and is rewarded for this, he should not lack direction” Dr Armitage says.

“It seems that Prince William and Princess Catherine are fully aware of the potential ramifications for all their children of growing up as a senior royal and they seem to be parenting their children differently to how previous royal children were parented.”

For now, though, Louis is mostly at school. He attends the £7,000-a-term Lambrook School in Berkshire with his two elder siblings.

Robert Jobson concludes: “What Louis does with his life remains to be seen. The military route is not the given it once was. Edward went a different way.

“Louis may too. He is eight years old. Right now he is just a little boy who makes his mother laugh even when he is driving her mad. Long may that last.”