‘Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, has given birth to a healthy baby boy’, proclaims my iPod, unbidden, first thing on a Tuesday morning. Of course, I already knew about that because, to be in England, one would have to have been living in a cave not to have heard the news. People lined the streets outside Buckingham Palace (when everyone else was at the hospital, so rather strange behaviour) and finally, after a few hours of family bonding time, we were informed that the first born of future monarch Prince William had been born a boy and everyone was doing well.

Now the real challenge begins.

William himself has already done a lot in terms of making the monarchy a little more approachable and helped them go over into the path of ‘celebrity’ as opposed to just royals, which, I doubt he intended, but which has served he and his young family very well. As a future king, marrying whom he obviously loved and doing such things as tearing up his wedding guest list in favour of friends rather than dignitaries, the people of Britain can now see much more of the monarchy’s humanity – something which is very much needed in the modern time where personality means more because we at all times ARE attempting to humanise our overlords in order to understand where they are coming from. A connection with the people is vital if the monarchy want to survive intact for another hundred years – which may be how long the newborn king lives, going on statistics and the fact that his great grandparents are still around!

William and Catherine have also done the correct thing in terms of winning favour with the people – unintentionally, and merely through personal choice, which is much more endearing than public polling – by choosing to raise the child themselves without the aid of a specific nanny, as many other young couples with more money than sense choose to do more as a status symbol than anything else. So once again, the future monarchy’s familiarity within itself serves to give it a more endearing appearance. Catherine’s parents will likely play a heavy role in the child’s upbringing, the newspapers and various sources suggest, and the word ‘commoner’ having been bandied about (possibly a little too much for many people’s liking) means that we expect to see the child grow into a level-headed and approachable young man who shall be our future king.

This is what we must depend on.

Our society does not need another brat prince into publicity stunts and who bows to public whim. We need someone who we can relate to, and who makes decisions based on his own intuition and good counsel. I’m not saying I expect the young tyke to have a twitter account by the time he’s ten, but we must hope that his mother’s ‘humble’ countenance does not play us false and that she and her husband raise a king in whom the public can place trust and understand as a person, not just a member of the royal family. That is how we deal with things nowadays.

Thankfully, the family seem to already be doing this intuitively. William making the calls to tell his family of the birth was a wonderful touch. His being present at the birth – somewhat unprecedented in our line of past monarchs and the arrival of their offspring – again serves to see the family’s closeness, which we ourselves can respect and admire for sticking to and ensuring the longevity thereof. The crowd of people around them, most of them without titles and merely people to whom the couple are close, also help us feel that the future of the royals may be very bright and be met with great public loyalty and love, because they are, as William’s mother was, of the people.

We as a nation, and with us, the world, will doubtless watch with interest as the young prince begins to grow up and watch the future unfold.