Princess Kate, like all members of the Royal Family, follows a series of rules and etiquette – some formal and some unwritten -while performing duties in public. The exact list of royal dos and don’ts is well kept secret.
But, it has been reported in the past that royals have some unexpected rules, from what nail polish colour they can wear, to posing for selfies and what they eat on royal tours.
In the Netflix documentary series ‘Harry & Meghan’ which was released in December 2022, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex explained that there are “a lot of invented protocols”.
One rumoured royal rule that appears to be false was that members of the Royal Family cannot hug members of the public. Kate and Meghan have both been seen hugging members of the public in the past.
And, both Kate and Meghan have admitted that there are certain royal rules they have had to abide by. Princess of Wales spoke out about one royal regulation after having to deny a child’s adorable request this summer.
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In late May, Kate visited the Chelsea Flower Show in order to attend the event’s first-ever children’s picnic. At the time, Kensington Palace said the special picnic was arranged to try and “help bring gardening and nature into the lives of more children.”
Kate sat and had lunch with children from ten different primary schools and also toured the world-renowned garden show alongside the schoolchildren. The Princess appeared to get on very well with a group of children who surrounded the royal to ask her questions about her life, and one daring little child asked Kate to autograph one of their drawings.
The Princess was heard having to refuse the request as members of the Royal Family cannot write out their names. Kate explained: “My name’s Catherine. I’m not allowed to write my signature, it’s just one of those rules.”
Kate also then said: “I can’t write my name, but I can draw” and proceeded to draw a series of pictures for the children present, which included a flower, a tree, and a pond surrounded by plants.
It has been reported that the Royal Family is banned from signing autographs due to the risk of royal signatures being forged, and it is deemed too big of a security risk. King Charles has also had to refuse autographs in the past, and reportedly responded to one royal fan request by stating: “Sorry, they don’t allow me to do that.”
In the ‘Harry & Meghan’ Netflix series, Meghan also spoke about certain royal rules that she could not break.
In the documentary, Meghan learned that members of the Royal Family championed “deliberately non-controversial” charity work and social causes, which Meghan learned about when she spoke about the #MeToo movement while at a Royal Foundation event.
Meghan said: “I didn’t know that that would be taboo to talk about…joining this family, I knew that there was a protocol for how things were done”.
The Duchess said that she had some difficulties learning all the royal rules. She said: “There’s no class [where] some person goes, ‘Sit like this, cross your legs like this, use this fork, don’t do this, curtsy then, wear this kind of hat. It doesn’t happen. So I needed to learn a lot.”
Meghan also said she believed that there were also royal fashion rules she had to abide by which meant she “rarely wore colour” while in Britain.
She said: “To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same colour as Her Majesty, if there’s a group event, but then you also should never be wearing the same colour as one of the other more senior members of the family.”
Meghan added; “It was also so I could just blend in, I’m not trying to stand out here. There’s no version of me joining this family and trying to not do everything I could to fit in.”
