Was This Photoshopped Too? 20 Then-And-Now Photos Of Royal Life

There was a time when you’d never, ever catch a royal lady with bare legs. Sure, they may look bare-legged in some photographs, but that’s because they have nude-colored pantythose on. And that pantyhose is a huge deal in royal circles, believe it or not. Allegedly one of the big fallings-out between Catherine, Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Sussex —less formally, Kate and Meghan — was over whether Princess Charlotte should have to wear a pair at Meghan’s wedding.

But this piece of royal protocol has become more relaxed over the past few years. Meghan caused a stir when she went sans pantyhose in her engagement pictures, but she continued to do it even when she was a fully fledged royal. And more curiously, given her reported stance on the issue, Kate is thought to have gone bare-legged a few times in public too.

Allegedly, Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t a very demonstrative mother, and she and Prince Philip left their young children with nannies for long periods while they worked. Elizabeth cared for her kids of course, but her duties as ruler of the country came first, and that was simply what royal parenting was like — until someone came along to change all that.

Princess Diana is credited with changing the game when it came to raising royals. She devoted endless time and energy to her sons, making sure they always came first in her schedule, or came with her when she toured. And she hugged them all the time, both on-camera and off. Now Prince William and Prince Harry both follow her example with their own kids.

Think the King can do whatever he wants, right? Think again! Back in 1936 Edward VIII was bluntly told by officials that he could marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson or he could be King, but he certainly couldn’t do both. Edward chose to marry Wallis, abdicated the throne, and caused a huge scandal: such was the infamy of divorce back then.

The royal family has been super-on-edge about divorce ever since. But things did change, albeit slowly. The Church of England, the religion the monarch heads, finally allowed remarrying after divorce in 2002 — just a few years before divorced King Charles III wed the divorced Camilla. Then in 2018 Harry married Meghan, a divorced woman, and no religious objections were raised.

Before television was commonplace, people had to make their own entertainment! So every Christmas — thanks to Princess Margaret, who suggested the idea — the royal family would put on a pantomime, complete with elaborate costumes. It was all for a good cause, too. The money they raised went to the Royal Household Wool Fund, a charity that helped World War II combatants.

But these days the royals have, reportedly, a very different way of making merry at Christmas. They give each other ridiculous gag gifts that you’d never expect a royal to enjoy! Allegedly Harry once gave Elizabeth a shower cap with a naughty message on it, and Diana bought a leopard-print bath mat for her sister-in-law Sarah, Duchess of York.

There was a time when it was downright forbidden for royal heirs to travel together. After all, what if the plane crashes and the entire line of succession is wiped out in one go? And don’t forget, air travel used to be a lot more dangerous than it is now. Philip lost his sister and two nephews in a plane crash in 1937.

These days it’s perfectly common for William to fly with his children, including heir to the throne Prince George. Elizabeth reportedly still hated it, though. In July 2022 there were reports that she was planning to summon William and forbid him from flying his children via helicopter. And to be fair, helicopters are generally more dangerous than modern-day planes.

Once upon a time, a radio was the only way to ensure the nation you were in charge of could hear you speak to all your subjects at the same time. Elizabeth made her first radio broadcast in 1940 at the age of 14, a speech intended to boost morale among Britain’s young children during World War II evacuations.

But things changed, and changed fast. During her reign Elizabeth saw vast advances in the field of broadcasting technology. By 2007 her annual Christmas Speech was going out live on YouTube’s The Royal Family Channel; in 2012 she recorded it in 3D. Those are things that surely must have been unthinkable for her during the beginning of World War II.

There was a time when royals would keep their distance from any “commoners” who came out to greet them on walkabouts. They would be polite of course, but hugging was right out. Until Diana came along and changed everything, that is. She loved to hug her fans. She even hugged AIDS patients at a time when people wrongly believed the condition could be spread by touch.

And these days, you just might get a big hug from a royal if you encounter them at an event. A former royal butler named Grant Harrold explained to TV show E! News in 2018, “None of the rest of the royal family hugged. It just wasn’t the done thing. Now the younger royals, princes William and Harry, you see them hugging... They are very much copying what their mother did, which is fantastic.”

In the past, female members of the royal family dressed very modestly indeed. Wearing anything that showed too much skin was forbidden, and even the otherwise Hell-raising Margaret seemed to mostly abide by this: after all, a royal wardrobe malfunction would have caused an unthinkable scandal. So skirts and sleeves were long and tolerance for any deviation was short.

Royal women still generally dress pretty modestly — reportedly, Elizabeth told Kate to wear longer skirts as soon as she became an official royal. But there’s still leeway, as Diana proved in her time. She often wore low-cut dresses, and would hold her clutch in front of her chest to make sure photographers could never get any compromising shots.

Buckingham Palace has gone through plenty of redesigns and renovations in the past century. Check out the famous White Drawing Room: it’s one of the fanciest rooms in the palace, packed with stunning artworks, and it even has a secret door hidden behind a mirror! But like everything else about the royals, it’s had to change with the times.

Regular people are permitted into the White Drawing Room these days, something royals of the past might have outright fainted at. But if you’ve never taken a tour of Buckingham Palace you might recognize the room anyway, because it’s the room from which Charles — like Elizabeth before him — delivers the annual royal Christmas Speech. It’s bound to keep changing with the times for as long as Buckingham Palace remains standing.

Did you ever see Elizabeth and Philip kiss in public? No? Well, there’s a reason for that. It’s not that they didn’t love each other — they did. Yet showing affection in front of their subjects was un-royal in their view. Royals were meant to be stoic and professional, so there was to be no kissing or even holding hands.

Modern-day royals, on the other hand, are happy to kiss their spouses in public. In 2018 etiquette expert Myka Meier told People magazine, “Senior members of the royal family would likely not be told how to interact, or when they can or cannot show PDA and would be trusted to use their better judgment as to when it’s appropriate.”

A long time ago, royal births were such a big deal that courtiers would gather to watch. But it wasn’t out of curiosity, it was out of fear that someone involved would try to kill or replace the baby. Luckily, times have changed, although up until fairly recently it was still common for royals to give birth in a palace rather than a hospital.

Princess Anne bucked the trend when she gave birth to both her children in hospital, and other royals shortly followed suit. After all, a hospital is the place you want to be if anything goes wrong. And as time went on another change took place: royal husbands started to be present at their wife’s side when she gave birth.

Once, if you can believe it, there was only really one paparazzo photographer who caused trouble for the monarchy. His name was Ray Bellisario and he was an absolute royal pain. He once published a book of his unsanctioned photos of the royal family, aptly named To Tread on Royal Toes, and sent a copy to the Queen: she immediately sent it back.

These days press intrusion is a big issue for the royals. The issue reached boiling point after Diana died in a car crash while being chased by photographers, and Harry especially never got over it. He told the BBC in 2017, “I think one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the people that chased her into the tunnel were the same people that were taking photographs of her while she was still dying on the back seat of the car.”

It used to be the case that males were favored in the line of succession. Elizabeth only became Queen because her uncle Edward abdicated, and her father had only girls as heirs. If she’d had a younger brother, he would have taken the throne instead of her. But this has now changed, although it took a long time. 

In 2013 — just before Prince George was born — something called the Succession to the Crown Act was signed into law. This meant that no matter what gender William and Kate’s child was, they’d be first in line either way. In the end their second child was a girl, Charlotte, but she remained in the line of succession directly behind George even after her younger brother Prince Louis was born.

In the past royals have seemed curiously helpless, because they had servants on hand to do absolutely everything for them: even closing their car doors! It used to be the case that when a royal got out of a car, someone else would shut the door for them. This was more for security reasons than anything else, but it must always have been a strange thing to get used to if you were newly married into the family.

And so when Meghan married into the family, she didn’t opt for the “someone will close the door for you” thing: she just did it herself. She was photographed closing her own door at a 2018 event and believe it or not, that tiny act caused chaos all across the internet. Etiquette expert William Hanson tweeted at the time, “This is not a protocol breach… Meghan clearly just shut the door out of force of habit.”

The official royal family website sets out the correct ways to behave should you meet a royal family member in person. You don’t actually have to curtsy or bow, but it’s considered “traditional” to do so. However, traditions change. And the current crop of royals certainly seem to want to meet people on a more equal level these days.

Royal expert Victoria Arbiter told the website Insider in 2017 that while you should probably bow to the monarch and older royals “the younger generations are a lot more relaxed when it comes to curtsying, so it's certainly not a requirement, but it comes down to greeting someone with respect.” Fair enough. The royal family even curtsy to each other, just so you know!

There used to be a motto in the royal family: “Never complain, never explain.” But in today’s world of 24/7 media, it’s hard to keep that up. Believe it or not, Philip was actually the first royal to do a TV interview. He spoke to interviewer David Dimbleby about the Commonwealth Technical Training Week on the BBC in 1961.

Now, royal family interviews aren’t remotely uncommon. And some members are very, very willing to both complain and explain. Harry and Meghan gave a bombshell interview to Oprah Winfrey in 2021 where they talked about their dissatisfaction with the royals and the British media; millions of people watched it. The fallout from it continues to this very day.

Take a look at old photographs of royal men when they were young, and you might notice something. They never wore pants, only shorts! It’s a weird royal tradition regarding the coming-of-age of a young boy. In 2014 royal expert Ingrid Seward told People magazine, “It is shorts until you’re eight and then, ‘Woo, you’re in long trousers.’ They suddenly feel very grown-up.”

But this might be starting to change! When George was four years old, he wore pants at his uncle Harry’s wedding to Meghan. As far as anyone could tell he was back in shorts after that, but he is in fact eight years old now, which means he’s allowed to finally ditch them. Considering England’s cold climate, he’s probably very glad of that. But when he’s an adult will he make his own kids stick to this tradition? 

Technically, you’re not supposed to touch a royal family member. In 2017 royalty expert Victoria Arbiter told Insider, “What you would absolutely not do is launch and give a big hug to the Queen, or try to kiss them or put your arms around them. That's a big no-no. Really it comes down to, ‘ Don't touch a royal.’” And yet…

Occasionally you’ll see pics of celebrities going so far as to clasp hands with a royal, or touch them on the shoulder. In 2009 there was utter shock in the media when Michelle Obama gave the Queen a little hug, but Obama said in her 2018 memoir Becoming, “I did what’s instinctive to me any time I feel connected to a new person.”

In the past there was only one way of hearing royal baby news. Whenever a new child was imminent, people would gather outside Buckingham Palace, and as soon as the baby was born officials would put a bulletin up letting everybody know. It’s a tradition that dates all the way back to 1837. And the royals do actually still do this, but they’ve modernized.

The bulletin on the gates of Buckingham Palace still goes up, but now there are more technological methods of letting the world know there’s a new royal baby. An announcement is sent out via the official royal Twitter account! Still, protocol around this is reportedly so strict that the tweet can only be sent after the bulletin at the gates has been placed.

In Queen Victoria’s time there were strict codes of etiquette about mourning a loved one. If you lost a husband you were expected to wear “mourning dress,” i.e. black clothes, for at least two years. Victoria herself went further, though, after the loss of her beloved Prince Albert and wore mourning dress for the rest of her life.

Almost certainly no-one would have judged Elizabeth if she’d chosen to wear black for months after Philip died, but as it was the official “mourning period” lasted only 30 days. While undoubtedly Elizabeth continued to grieve in private, she quickly resumed her trademark wearing of bright colors after that. She liked to wear them because it meant people could easily spot her in a crowd.