Queen Elizabeth Always Made the Same Request Before Tea With Prince William
Sundays during his boarding school years meant lunches with Queen Elizabeth II for Prince William. According to a former royal staffer, the late queen always said the same thing before the now-Prince of Wales came over for tea. Ahead, what Queen Elizabeth requested. Plus, who came up with the idea for the lunches. Hint: It wasn’t William or his grandmother.
The queen told staff to ‘put an extra cup and saucer on the table’ before William came for tea
Queen Elizabeth, who died in September 2022 at the age of 96, had a simple request when William came over for lunch on Sundays. According to Paul Burrel, Princess Diana’s former butler, who spent more than 20 years working for the royal family, the queen requested an extra cup and saucer.
“Every Sunday, granny would say to me, ‘William’s coming round for tea with his policeman, so put an extra cup and saucer on the table,’” Burrell said on behalf of Slingo (via Express).
William attended Eton College, a prestigious boarding school for boys near Windsor Castle in Windsor, England. “She [Queen Elizabeth II] would teach him things in the Oak Room at Windsor which now he stands in as Prince of Wales,” Burrell said.
“One day, he will stand in that place as king and remember that little tea table with two places in front of the open fire where he would sit with his granny as she taught him about affairs of state, which is quite incredible.”
William and the queen started having lunch together in 1995 as King Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage ended
According to royal author and historian Robert Lacey, William’s regular meetings with the queen over tea started as King Charles III and Princess Diana’s marriage neared its end. The pair announced their separation in 1992 before their divorce became official four years later in 1996.
“The prince takes his style from his royal grandmother, who intervened as the marriage of William’s parents dissolved in 1995,” Lacey wrote in People. “The 13-year-old was in a fragile place — alone and just starting boarding at the elite Eton College across the river from Windsor.”
At the time, the Battle of the Brothers author explained, the queen had been “concerned for her grandson’s emotional state.” So she “invited William up to join her when [the] Eton boys went home for the weekend.”
The idea for Queen Elizabeth and William to have tea came from Prince Philip
Queen Elizabeth wasn’t the brains behind her weekly lunches with William. According to Lacey, her husband, Prince Philip, came up with the idea.
“Philip was crucial in helping coach William as a future King,” Lacey said. “It was Philip’s idea to set up the lunches between William and his grandmother.”
“When the time came for the Queen to talk business with William,” he explained, “Philip would quietly excuse himself.” Why? “Because he didn’t feel that the constitutional side of the Queen’s job was something he wanted to interfere in.”
The weekly teas may continue if William’s oldest child and heir, Prince George, goes to boarding school at Eton. For now, the 10-year-old attends classes with his siblings, Princess Charlotte, 8, and Prince Louis, 5, at Lambrook School.
