Later in the day, Kensington Palace also shared beach footage captured during their Easter getaway to Cornwall to celebrate George’s milestone birthday.<\/p>\n
In the clip, filmed in the south west of England, George can be seen sporting sunglasses while waving and grinning at the camera, batting in a game of beach cricket, and scrambling over rocks without shoes alongside his younger brother Prince Louis.<\/p>\n
Yet one subtle but telling detail united both social media posts: neither used George’s royal title. <\/p>\n
The second in line to the throne was referred to simply by his first name – a practice William and Catherine have also adopted for Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis on their birthdays, too.<\/p>\n
Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond sees this deliberate informality as deeply significant, particularly as a reflection of William’s ambitions for the institution he will one day lead.<\/p>\n
“I love the fact that they refer to him – and their other children – simply by their Christian names, without the formality or pomposity of using their titles,” she told the Mirror.<\/p>\n
![\"Prince](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/prince-george.png\")
Prince George reached a significant milestone this week, turning 13 in a celebration marked by two distinctly different releases from his parents<\/p>\n
| <\/p>\n
INSTAGRAM: @PRINCEANDPRINCESSOFWALES<\/p>\n
“It sets a new tone, a tone that William has spoken about: being royal with a small ‘r’,” she said.<\/p>\n
This year’s suited image represents a notable departure from George’s 12th birthday photograph, which captured him dressed in relaxed country attire in Norfolk.<\/p>\n
It also stands apart from the more informal settings chosen for Charlotte and Louis’s birthday portraits.<\/p>\n
Mrs Bond believes this shift in presentation carries particular significance for the eldest Wales child.<\/p>\n
![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/george-birthday-post-caption.png\")
George was referred to simply by his first name \u2014 a practice William and Catherine have also adopted for Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis on their birthdays, too<\/p>\n
| <\/p>\n
INSTAGRAM<\/p>\n
“For William and Catherine, it is a way of protecting their children, and it is working well,” she explained. “And this year we got a bit of both: the fun video of George on holiday with his siblings, and the much smarter one in his suit (happily without his tie!).”<\/p>\n
She added: “These pictures will be part of the history books, so I suppose it’s important to start seeing this lovely young boy as a future King. And seeing him in his suit helps mark his transition from child to teenager.”<\/p>\n
The tradition of releasing an annual birthday photo has been a “highly successful tactic,” she continued.<\/p>\n
“I suspect this tradition will continue because it’s part of a bargain whereby one or two excellent images are released to keep us all informed about how George is doing – and then he is left alone.”<\/p>\n
George’s 13th birthday arrives at a pivotal juncture in his young life. Like his father, as George enters his teenage years he prepares to up sticks and move to Eton College, the esteemed all-boys institution in Windsor.<\/p>\n
Both William and Prince Harry were educated there during their youth.<\/p>\n
He will arrive on September 8 alongside friends from Lambrook and familiar faces from the prep-school sporting circuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prince William and his wife, Catherine, have made one notable change that could show he is seeking to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,50,121,120,1852,2331,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-710944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-news","tag-prince-george","tag-prince-william","tag-royal","tag-sgg","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}