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William And Catherine BREAK DOWN In Tears! Little Louis STUNS Royal Guard With Touching Gesture! — Transcript

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0:00So, Prince Louis is 8 years old and he
0:02just did something so quietly
0:04extraordinary that the British press
0:06doesn't really know what to do with it.
0:08Because for years now, the story on this
0:10kid has been set in stone. He's the wild
0:14one, the cheeky one, the one pulling
0:15faces on the balcony and sticking his
0:18tongue out at his mother while the whole
0:19world watches. That's the narrative.
0:22That's the box they put him in when he
0:24was 4 years old. And now there's a
0:26soldier in the Grenadier Guards walking
0:28around with a child sports day medal in
0:29the breast pocket of his tunic and the
0:32story of how it got there completely
0:33rewrites everything you thought you knew
0:35about that little boy. So, before we go
0:37any further, if you're new here and you
0:39like following royal stories without all
0:41the screaming headlines, hit subscribe
0:43to Crown Watch really quick. We break
0:46this stuff down properly. Okay, back to
0:48it. The soldier in question is 22 years
0:51old. He joined the Grenadier Guards
0:53straight out of school, which is the
0:54senior regiment of the foot guards, the
0:56ones in the red tunics and those tall
0:58black bearskin caps you see standing
1:00outside Buckingham Palace and Windsor
1:01Castle. He's from a small town in the
1:04north of England. His mother's a nurse.
1:06His father died when he was 11. He
1:09doesn't want his name used, so I'm going
1:11to call him the young guardsman. The
1:13people who serve with him describe him
1:15as quiet, the kind of soldier who irons
1:17his kit twice, never complains about a
1:20freezing night on duty, and sends half
1:22his pay home to his mother every month.
1:24That's who was standing sentry at
1:26Windsor Castle on the morning of
1:27September 8th. Now, if you've ever been
1:29to Windsor, you've seen these guardsmen.
1:32They stand absolutely still in their
1:34boxes or march up and down their few
1:36yards of gravel while tourists take
1:38pictures. Most visitors are respectful
1:40about it, some aren't. And that morning,
1:42a group of four or five young men,
1:45probably on a stag weekend by the look
1:46of them, decided it would be funny to
1:48stand right in front of this soldier and
1:50try to make him laugh. They stood a yard
1:53from his face. They filmed him on their
1:55phones. They pulled faces. They shouted
1:57things about his hat and his mother and
1:59the king. One of them reached out and
2:01flicked the chin strap of his bearskin.
2:04And the young guardsman did exactly what
2:05the army trains guardsmen to do. He
2:08stood still. He didn't blink. When one
2:10of them stepped over the line on the
2:12ground that marks the sentry's space, he
2:15did what he's allowed to do. He stamped
2:17his foot and shouted at them to stand
2:19back from the king's guard in that voice
2:22they teach you in training. The men
2:23laughed and filmed that, too, then
2:25wandered off toward the town. The
2:27guardsman stood there for the rest of
2:29his duty with his face burning under
2:30that bearskin. It wasn't the first time
2:33something like that had happened to him,
2:35but it was the worst. And it was
2:36September 8th, which for him, as it
2:38turned out, mattered more than almost
2:40any other day of the year. Because
2:42September 8th is the day the late queen
2:44died at Balmoral in 2022 at the age of
2:4796 after 70 years on the throne. It was
2:50the second day of term at Louise's new
2:52school. And every year since, the family
2:55has kept that day quietly the way that
2:57family keeps most things. To understand
3:00what happened later that afternoon at
3:01Windsor, you have to understand the boy.
3:04And to understand the boy, you have to
3:05go back to the beginning. Louis Arthur
3:08Charles was born at 1 minute past 11 on
3:11the morning of Monday, April 23rd, 2018
3:14in the Lindo Wing at St. Mary's Hospital
3:16in Paddington. 8 lb, 7 oz. William was
3:20there. It was St. George's Day. It's the
3:22same wing of the same hospital where
3:25Diana gave birth to William in June 1982
3:29and to Harry 2 years later. You've seen
3:30the photograph from 1982, the young
3:33mother on the steps of the Lindo Wing
3:35with her first baby wrapped in a white
3:37shawl and her husband beside her. 36
3:39years later, her son stood on those same
3:41steps with his third child. 4 days
3:44later, his parents named him Louis
3:46Arthur Charles. The Charles was for his
3:49grandfather. The Louis went further back
3:52to Lord Louis Mountbatten, Prince
3:54Philip's uncle, who'd been Charles's
3:56great uncle and the man he looked up to
3:58more than anybody when he was young. And
4:01uh, with Louis came a little piece of
4:04history. Under the old rules, a baby boy
4:06would have gone straight past his older
4:08sister in the line of succession. But,
4:10the Succession to the Crown Act of 2013
4:12had changed that. So, Charlotte, who was
4:15about to turn three, kept her place, and
4:18Louis became the first British prince
4:20ever to stand behind an older sister in
4:22the line to the throne. The Archbishop
4:24of Canterbury christened him that July
4:27in the Chapel Royal at St. James's
4:29Palace in a copy of the lace gown made
4:31in 1841 for Queen Victoria's eldest
4:34daughter. And, on his first birthday,
4:36his mother took his photograph herself
4:38at Anmer Hall, their house in Norfolk.
4:41That started a habit that lasted for
4:43years. On almost every birthday, the
4:45person behind the camera was Catherine.
4:48She takes those birthdays very
4:49seriously. In 2019, on a BBC Christmas
4:52program, she said she loves making the
4:54birthday cakes. That it's become a bit
4:56of a tradition that she stays up until
4:58midnight with ridiculous amounts of cake
5:01mix and icing, and mix far too much. She
5:04said she loves it. Keep that picture in
5:06your head, a mother up at midnight with
5:08the icing and a camera in her hand the
5:10next morning. Because, by the end of
5:12this story, it's the boy who's holding
5:13the camera. On his first Trooping the
5:15Colour in June 2019, Louis came out onto
5:18the balcony at Buckingham Palace for the
5:20first time. He was 13 months old. He
5:23waved at the crowds on the mall, and
5:25kept on waving. And, when the planes
5:27came over, his mother held him tight. In
5:29the spring of 2020, during the first
5:31lockdown, the palace posted a little
5:33video of the three children clapping for
5:35the people working in the NHS.
5:38Louis, not yet two, keeps glancing
5:40sideways at his brother and sister to
5:42check he's doing it right. For his
5:43second birthday, his mother photographed
5:45him with a rainbow he'd made out of his
5:47own handprints.
5:49>> [music]
5:49>> The same kind of rainbow people taped in
5:51their windows all over Britain that
5:52spring. In April 2021, she took his
5:56picture on his little bike on the
5:57morning of his first day at nursery.
5:59That October, the BBC asked William
6:02about the children, and he described his
6:04youngest in one line, "Louis enjoys
6:07playing outside the whole time." he
6:08said. "He lives outside." And then came
6:10the summer of 2022
6:13and the week that gave Louis the
6:14reputation he's had ever since.
6:16Thursday, June 2nd, the late Queen's
6:18Platinum Jubilee, 70 years on the
6:21throne, after trooping the color, the
6:23family came out onto the balcony for the
6:25flypast. Louis was four in a little
6:28white sailor suit standing right beside
6:30his great-grandmother. And as the jets
6:32came screaming over the mall, he clapped
6:35both hands over his ears and screwed up
6:37his whole face and his mouth went wide
6:39open in a howl. Beside him, the Queen
6:42was smiling. That picture went around
6:44the world in an hour. Three days later
6:46on the Sunday, it happened again. The
6:49Platinum Pageant went down the mall and
6:51Louis sat in the front row of the royal
6:53box beside his mother through a very
6:55long afternoon. The cameras caught him
6:58sticking his tongue out at her. They
7:00caught him putting his hand over her
7:02mouth. Later he climbed onto his
7:04grandfather Charles's lap and behind him
7:07Mike Tindall, who's married to William's
7:09cousin Zara, pointed two fingers at his
7:12own eyes and then at Louis the way every
7:14uncle in the country has done to a child
7:16at a wedding. The papers had a wonderful
7:18time and from that weekend on the story
7:21about Louis was set. The cheeky one, the
7:23handful, the little prince nobody can
7:25control. Some of it was affectionate and
7:28most people meant it kindly, but some of
7:30it wasn't kind at all. There were
7:32columnists who wrote that he was a
7:33spoiled little boy and commentators on
7:36television who said his parents had no
7:38grip on him and a great many people
7:40online who said far worse. He was four.
7:43Hold onto that word by the way, control.
7:45You'll hear it again at the end in a
7:47place you won't expect. That Sunday
7:49evening, for the Queen's last surprise
7:51appearance on the balcony, Louis was out
7:54there with her for the final moment of
7:55the Jubilee. It was the last summer
7:57they'd have together. On Wednesday,
7:59September 7th, 2022,
8:02William drove the family from their new
8:04home at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor to a
8:06prep school near Ascot called Lambrook
8:09for the settling in afternoon before the
8:11new term. The headmaster met them on the
8:13drive. Louis IV was starting in
8:16reception. Lambrook is an old school
8:18that opened in 1860 to take in boys from
8:21families at the royal court in Windsor.
8:23So, in a way the family was going back
8:25to where it started and term began the
8:28next morning, Thursday the 8th. That
8:30afternoon at Balmoral, the Queen died.
8:33Two days later, on the Saturday, William
8:36and Catherine and Harry and Meghan came
8:38out together to look at the flowers
8:40people had left at the gates of Windsor
8:42Castle. Catherine stopped to talk to
8:44some of the people in the crowd and
8:46several of them afterwards repeated what
8:48she told them about her youngest son.
8:50Hearing the news, Louis had said that at
8:52least granny was with great-grandpa now.
8:55Catherine had tears in her eyes as she
8:57said it. The people who heard her said,
8:59"Remembering him saying it, there's
9:01something else I want you to know about
9:03that week because it matters to this
9:04story."
9:05On Wednesday, September 14th, a gun
9:07carriage carried the Queen's coffin from
9:09Buckingham Palace
9:11to Westminster Hall and for the next
9:13four days, the country came to see her.
9:16You'll remember the queue, miles of it
9:18along the South Bank of the Thames.
9:19People waiting 12 hours, 14 hours
9:22through the night to walk past the
9:23coffin for a few seconds. Around a
9:25quarter of a million people did it in
9:27the end and standing around that coffin
9:29day and night in shifts, they were
9:31soldiers, men and women from the
9:33regiments of the Household Division and
9:35the King's Bodyguard standing at the
9:37corners of the catafalque with their
9:39heads bowed, absolutely still, 20
9:42minutes at a time while the whole
9:43country filed past. One of them, the
9:46account says, was an 18-year-old
9:48grenadier a few months out of training
9:50standing his first ever public duty. The
9:53young guardsman, he stood his watches by
9:56the Queen's coffin through those four
9:58days and nights. His mother came down
10:00from the north on the coach and queued
10:02for 11 hours and walked past him and
10:05didn't wave cuz she knew he couldn't
10:06wave back. She says he didn't move a
10:08muscle. She says she's never been so
10:10proud of anybody in her life. That's who
10:12was standing in a sentry box at Windsor
10:14on the morning of September 8th this
10:16year with a group of strangers jeering
10:18in his face. It was 4 years to the day
10:21since the Queen died, and he was
10:22thinking about that coffin, the people
10:24around him say, the whole time those men
10:26were shouting. Diana knew a little about
10:29that sort of duty as it happens. In
10:31September 1997,
10:33after she died in Paris, her coffin lay
10:36in the Chapel Royal at St. James's
10:38Palace, and the queues of people waiting
10:40to sign the books of condolence
10:42stretched down the mall and around the
10:43corner. William was 15. He said since
10:46that walking behind her coffin with the
10:48whole world watching was one of the
10:50hardest things he's ever done, and he's
10:52never forgotten the strangers who queued
10:54all night to say goodbye to her. The boy
10:56who was four when the Queen died and the
10:58soldier who was 18 when he stood beside
11:00her coffin were both at Windsor on the
11:02anniversary, and neither of them had any
11:05idea that morning that the other one
11:06existed. Before we get to that
11:08afternoon, there are a few more things
11:10you need to know about Louis because
11:11they explain what he did. Earlier this
11:14month at the Cheltenham Literature
11:15Festival, Dame Penny Mordaunt told a
11:18story nobody had heard before. On
11:19Coronation Day in May 2023, she was the
11:23woman who carried the heavy sword of
11:24state in front of the king for the whole
11:26service, and the whole country fell a
11:28little in love with her for it. And at
11:31Cheltenham, she talked about the dress
11:34rehearsal on the Thursday before. She
11:36said the king was bored out of his mind,
11:39hours of standing and walking and
11:40standing again, and then uh she said he
11:43suddenly sprang to life because Prince
11:45Louis had come to visit. They stopped
11:48the rehearsal so that the king could
11:50show his grandson the crown jewels. She
11:52said it's a memory she'll treasure.
11:54Louis was five. And 2 days later, on May
11:576th, he walked into Westminster Abbey
12:00holding his sister's hand and sat with
12:02his mother through a very long service
12:05and yawned and pointed things out to
12:07Charlotte and at one point slipped out
12:09for a break. That evening, when ITV
12:12listed the defining moments of the
12:13coronation, Louis was in the headline as
12:16the boy who stole the show. Two days
12:18after that, the family went to Slough to
12:20a scout hut for the big help out, the
12:23volunteering day that closed the
12:24coronation weekend. They tried archery,
12:27they built a campfire, William drove a
12:29little digger with Louis on his lap, and
12:32Louis pushed a wheelbarrow across the
12:34grass, and his mother was heard telling
12:36him to put that on the fire. It was the
12:38first time he joined his parents for a
12:39working engagement. And that June, at
12:42the King's first Trooping the Colour,
12:44Louis did something on the balcony that
12:46people noticed. As the soldiers marched
12:49past below, he stood up straight and
12:51gave them a little salute. He's done it
12:53every year since. He loves the soldiers,
12:55he loves the bands and the horses and
12:57the red tunics. William told somebody
12:59once, the account says, that Louis can
13:02name more regiments than he can. He
13:04loves the flypasts, too, these days,
13:06even if the hands still go over the ears
13:08when the jets come low. At the 80th
13:10anniversary of VE Day in May 2025, he
13:13watched about 1,300 servicemen and women
13:16march down the Mall from a stand outside
13:18the palace, and then went up onto the
13:20balcony for the planes. He was 12 days
13:23past his seventh birthday. Then came
13:252024 and the year that changed
13:28everything in that house. In March 2024,
13:30Catherine told the world she was having
13:32treatment for cancer. You'll remember
13:34how that felt. And that summer at
13:36Trooping the Colour, she made her first
13:38public appearance since the
13:39announcement, riding in the carriage
13:41with her three children. There's a
13:43photograph of Louis that day, 6 years
13:45old, looking out of the carriage window
13:48at the crowds with his mother beside
13:49him. In September, she said she'd
13:51finished her chemotherapy in a short
13:53film shot in Norfolk, with the children
13:55laughing on a hay bale at the end. And
13:57in January 2025, she said she was in
14:00remission. A few weeks after that, for
14:02World Cancer Day, she shared a
14:04photograph of herself in the woods,
14:06standing with her arms flung wide in a
14:08trench coat and a flat cap, smiling. The
14:11person behind the camera was Louis. He
14:14was six. For years, his mother had taken
14:16his birthday pictures. This time he'd
14:19taken hers. His seventh birthday
14:21portrait that spring showed him sitting
14:23on a log among the bluebells, grinning
14:25with his front teeth missing. In a short
14:27clip released with it, he announced that
14:29he could jump off the log and then he
14:32did. He's football mad, too, although
14:34nobody's sure which team. William, who
14:37supported Aston Villa all his life, told
14:40a little boy in Edinburgh last year that
14:42his youngest said he supported five
14:44different football teams at the moment.
14:45William made it fairly clear which one
14:47he'd prefer.
14:49That autumn, the family moved out of
14:51Adelaide Cottage and into Forest Lodge,
14:53a bigger house in Windsor Great Park, a
14:56few minutes drive from the castle. And
14:58this April, for his eighth birthday, the
15:00photographs came from a family holiday
15:02in Cornwall. Louis leaning on the rail
15:04of a boat with his arms folded and the
15:06sea behind him. Louis jumping into the
15:09water in a wetsuit. Eight is great, the
15:11caption said. At Christmas last year, he
15:14was on the walk to church at Sandringham
15:16with the rest of the family. And on the
15:18way home, people in the crowd handed the
15:20children boxes of chocolates. While his
15:22mother spent almost 20 minutes talking
15:25to the people at the barriers. And at
15:27the start of December, he went with his
15:29brother and sister to the carol service
15:31his mother hosts every year at
15:33Westminster Abbey. Where the children
15:35post Christmas cards into a special post
15:37box for other children who might be
15:39finding Christmas hard. Last year, at a
15:42Women's Institute in Sunningdale, one of
15:44the members asked William straight out
15:46whether Louis was a bit of a handful. It
15:48was the question people have been asking
15:50since the Jubilee pageant. William
15:52didn't dodge it. He's a character, he
15:54said, but he's a very good boy. And this
15:56summer at the Commonwealth Games in
15:57Glasgow on August 1st, Louis told the
16:00athletes he'd done his first school
16:02sports day. Somebody mentioned he liked
16:04the high jump and his mother asked him
16:06if that was true and he said, "Yeah."
16:08And William said that was news to them.
16:10Catherine said he was perfecting his
16:12handstand. Louis said it was going a bit
16:14well, but that Charlotte thought he
16:16wasn't very good his first school sports
16:18day and somewhere in it the account says
16:21a little medal on a red ribbon for
16:23coming second in the high jump. He'd
16:25been carrying it in his pocket ever
16:27since. Now the afternoon the family kept
16:30the anniversary quietly the way they do.
16:32After school the people close to them
16:34say Catherine took the children into the
16:37castle to St. George's Chapel to the
16:39little side chapel where the late Queen
16:41lies beside Prince Philip and her
16:43parents and her sister. They took
16:45flowers. They stood there for a few
16:47minutes.
16:48>> [music]
16:48>> Then they walked back through the castle
16:49grounds towards the car and on the way
16:52they passed the young guardsman. By then
16:55the family's protection officer had
16:57heard about the morning from the guard
16:58commander, the men with the phones, the
17:00cheering, the chinstrap. And as they
17:02walked he mentioned that quietly to
17:04Catherine. He told her something else
17:06too that the guard commander had told
17:07him. That this particular young soldier
17:10had stood guard by the Queen's coffin in
17:12Westminster Hall four years ago that
17:14week when he was 18. Louis heard. He's
17:17eight. [music]
17:18Eight-year-olds hear everything. He
17:19asked his mother whether he could say
17:21something to the soldier. Catherine told
17:23him that guardsmen on sentry aren't
17:26allowed to talk or move or look at you
17:28and that it's very important they don't
17:30because it's their job. Louis thought
17:32about that the people who were there say
17:35and then he asked whether he could give
17:36him something if he didn't make him
17:38move. Catherine said she supposed he
17:41could. The next part took about a minute
17:44and the people who saw it say it was the
17:45quietest minute of the whole day. Louis
17:48walked up to the sentry box. He stopped
17:50right at the line painted on the ground,
17:52the line those men had stepped over that
17:54morning. And he didn't cross it. He
17:56stood up very straight with his feet
17:58together the way he does on the balcony
18:00at trooping and he gave the young
18:02guardsman a salute the way he's seen the
18:04soldiers do it a hundred times from that
18:06balcony. The guardsman didn't move. He
18:09couldn't. [music] But the people who
18:10were there say they could see his eyes.
18:13Then Louis took something out of his
18:14pocket and reached forward without
18:16stepping over the line and put it on the
18:19little ledge at the edge of the sentry
18:20box. Then he stepped back and saluted
18:22again and walked back to his mother.
18:24Last time on this channel I told you
18:26about a silver compass, a present from
18:28the Sultan of Oman to Louisa's mother
18:31with her name engraved on the back that
18:33went missing for 12 hours at Windsor and
18:36came back and I finished with Louis
18:39turning it over in his hands and reading
18:41the back of it out loud. I didn't know
18:43then that I'd be telling you about
18:45something Louis left on alleged Windsor
18:47a few hundred yards from that same room
18:49and that this time he'd be the one
18:51giving the present. A gentleman called
18:53Ron wrote to me from Aldershot a while
18:55ago. He served in the Coldstream Guards
18:58in the 1970s, he said, and stood sentry
19:01outside Buckingham Palace more times
19:03than he could count. He said the
19:04tourists who shouted at you never
19:06bothered him much. The thing he
19:08remembered 50 years on was an old lady
19:11who stopped one morning, said, "Thank
19:13you, son." and walked on. He said he
19:15still thinks about her. Ron, I thought
19:18of you the whole time I was writing
19:19this. This is my reading and you're
19:21welcome to disagree. I don't think Louis
19:23understood everything about what that
19:25soldier had been through. He's eight,
19:28but I think he understood two things
19:29perfectly well. That some grown men had
19:32been unkind to somebody who wasn't
19:34allowed to answer back and that the
19:36somebody had once looked after his
19:38great-grandmother. And at eight, I think
19:41that's all you need to understand. The
19:43young guardsman finished his duty at
19:454:00. The account says the relief came
19:48and marched him off and the corporal
19:50picked up the thing on the ledge and
19:52gave it to him in the guardroom. It was
19:54a little round metal, the cheap kind
19:56schools buy by the hundred, gold colored
19:59on a red ribbon with a picture of a
20:01running figure stamped on the front. On
20:03the back somebody had scratched with the
20:05point of a compass, by the look of it, a
20:07single number. Two. Second place, the
20:10corporal told him who'd left it. The
20:12guardsman sat down on the bench in the
20:15guardroom with his bearskin on the floor
20:17beside him and he didn't say anything
20:19for a long time. The other men in the
20:21room left him alone. They'd all heard
20:23about the morning. He asked his officer
20:26that evening whether he could keep it.
20:27Soldiers on duty aren't meant to accept
20:29presents, and there are rules about it.
20:32His officer said he'd find out, and the
20:33answer came back two days later from a
20:36long way up. The people around the
20:37regiment say he could keep it with the
20:39compliments of the colonel. There's a
20:41detail there that most people miss. The
20:44colonel of the Grenadier Guards, since
20:46the end of 2022, is Queen Camilla. The
20:49King gave her the role after his mother
20:51died. The soldier who stood guard by the
20:54late Queen's coffin, who heard strangers
20:57jeer at him on the anniversary of her
20:59death, and who got a medal from her
21:01great-grandson, heard from the Queen
21:04herself that he could keep it. I think
21:06that's a rather lovely chain of people
21:07all the way down from the top. He rang
21:10his mother that night. He told her about
21:12the men with the phones, and then he
21:14told her about the boy at the line.
21:15She's a nurse in a hospital in the
21:17north. She'd worked a long shift that
21:19day, and she sat down at her kitchen
21:22table, the people close to her say, and
21:24cried for about 10 minutes because her
21:27husband had died when her son was 11,
21:29and there had been a great many days
21:31since when she'd wished somebody would
21:32be kind to her boy. And then she got out
21:35of pad of writing paper and a blue pen
21:36and wrote a letter. It took her three
21:38evenings to get it right. It's two pages
21:41long, and it arrived at Forest Lodge,
21:43the people around the family say, at the
21:45end of September, addressed in careful
21:47handwriting to the Prince and Princess
21:49of Wales with a second-class stamp.
21:52Staff open most of the letters to that
21:54family, and staff answer them. That's
21:55the way it has to be because there tens
21:58of thousands of them, but this one had
22:00the name of a regiment on the back of
22:02the envelope and the word Louie
22:04underlined on the front, and somebody in
22:06the office had the sense to put it on
22:08the top of the pile for the evening.
22:10That letter is the document at the
22:11center of this whole story. The first
22:14page is about her son. She wrote that
22:17he'd joined the guards at 18, the year
22:19the Queen died, and that four years ago
22:22that month he'd stood beside the Queen's
22:24coffin in Westminster Hall 20 minutes at
22:27a time, for 4 days and nights, and that
22:29she'd queued for 11 hours to walk past
22:32him. She wrote that she didn't wave
22:34because she knew he couldn't wave back.
22:36She wrote that she'd never been prouder
22:38of anybody in her life until the 8th of
22:40September this year. Then she wrote
22:42about the men with the phones. She
22:44didn't make a fuss of it. She said it
22:46happens more than people think, and that
22:48her son never complains, but she said
22:50he'd rung her that night sounding about
22:5212 years old the way he had after his
22:54father died. The second page is about
22:57Lewis. She wrote that a little boy had
22:59stood at the line those men had crossed
23:01and hadn't crossed it, that he'd saluted
23:03her son and left something on the ledge
23:05without making him move because somebody
23:07had told him a soldier on duty mustn't
23:09move. She wrote that her son had held
23:11that medal in the guard room for half an
23:13hour without saying a word.
23:15She wrote that he told her the boy had
23:17stood as still as any guardsman while he
23:20did it. William and Catherine read it at
23:21the kitchen table after the children
23:23were in bed. Catherine read the first
23:25page aloud, the people close to them
23:27say, and when she got to the part about
23:30the coffin and the queue and the mother
23:32who didn't wave, she had to stop. And
23:35William took the letter from her and
23:37went on reading. He got as far as the 11
23:39hours and then he had to stop, too. And
23:42I think he was remembering another
23:43coffin as well, in another September, a
23:46long time ago, and the strangers who'd
23:49queued through the night along the mall
23:51to say goodbye to his mother. They were
23:53both thinking about the same thing that
23:54week in September, 4 years ago. The
23:56Queen at Balmoral and the phone call and
23:59the flight north and the coffin coming
24:01down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and the
24:03long days in London and that silent hall
24:06with the soldiers standing still at the
24:08corners and the country walking past in
24:10the middle of the night. William had
24:12stood in that hall, too, with his
24:14brother and his cousins for the
24:15grandchildren's vigil around the coffin.
24:17And Catherine had been there that week
24:19as well. They'd both seen those young
24:21soldiers with their heads bowed. They'd
24:23never known any of their names. And now
24:26one of them had written to them through
24:28his mother about their son. William
24:30turned to the second page. He read it to
24:32the bottom and then he put it down on
24:34the table and didn't say anything. And
24:36Catherine reached across and took his
24:38hand. The line at the bottom of the
24:40second page, in the same careful blue
24:42ink, said this, "They say nobody can
24:44control your boy. On the 8th of
24:46September, he stood still for my son,
24:49which is more than those grown men could
24:51do." Catherine read it twice. Then she
24:53said, "The people close to them say that
24:56she wanted to answer it herself. She
24:58wrote back that same week by hand on her
25:01own paper. She thanked the young
25:03Guardsman's mother for the letter. She
25:05said that they both been in Westminster
25:07Hall that week four years ago and had
25:10seen the soldiers at the coffin and that
25:12she was very glad now to know one of
25:14their names.
25:15>> [music]
25:15>> She said Louie hadn't told them about
25:17the medal at all, not a word, until
25:19she'd asked him about it. And that when
25:21she did, he'd gone very red and said it
25:23was only a second place one. And at the
25:26end, in a line the mother has since read
25:28to Heffer Ward, Catherine wrote four
25:30words about her son. He made us so
25:32proud. The Grenadiers are proud of
25:35chains like the one from the Queen to
25:37that sentry box. It's a very old
25:39regiment. Supporters of Charles II
25:41raised it in 1656
25:44when Charles was still in exile and it
25:46got its name after Waterloo in 1815 for
25:50its part in defeating the Grenadiers of
25:52Napoleon's Imperial Guard. That's where
25:54the tall bearskin caps come from, too.
25:56Every Guardsman hears that story in his
25:58first week and every Guardsman learns
26:00that the regiment's first duty, before
26:02anything else, is to the sovereign.
26:04Standing by a coffin in Westminster
26:06Hall, standing in a box at Windsor while
26:08strangers jeer, it's the same duty. The
26:11young Guardsman's company commander, the
26:13people around the regiment say, put the
26:15medal on the notice board in the guard
26:17room for a day so that the whole guard
26:19could see it and then gave it back to
26:20him. He said it belonged in a pocket,
26:23not on a wall. I want to say something
26:25about what a salute means because I
26:27think Louie understands it better than
26:29most grownups do. It isn't a greeting,
26:32it's a mark of respect given by somebody
26:34who chooses to give it. Soldiers salute
26:37officers, officers salute the color,
26:39everybody salutes the sovereign, and
26:41nobody as far as I know is obliged to
26:43salute a 22-year-old guardsman in a
26:45sentry box. Louis did it anyway, twice,
26:48because he decided the young man
26:49deserved it.
26:50>> [music]
26:50>> The guardsman's mother got Catherine's
26:52reply in the first week of October. She
26:55opened it standing up in her hallway.
26:57The people close to her say, still in
26:59her coat after a night shift, and she
27:01read it twice before she sat down. Then
27:03she rang her son and read it to him over
27:05the phone, all of it, including the four
27:08words at the end. He didn't say anything
27:10for a while, then he said, "Mom, don't
27:11tell anybody." She hasn't much, only the
27:15nurses on her ward, and her sister and
27:17the woman next door. And there was one
27:20more letter that the young guardsman
27:21wasn't expecting, a short note from the
27:24colonel of his regiment, the queen. The
27:27account says Camilla wrote that she'd
27:29heard about the 8th of September from
27:31her daughter-in-law, and that she was
27:33very proud to be the colonel of a
27:35regiment whose soldiers stood still on a
27:37morning like that. She didn't mention
27:39Louis by name, she didn't need to.
27:41That's where the words on the thumbnail
27:43come from, not from a balcony, not from
27:46an interview, from a handwritten letter
27:48from one mother to another with a
27:50second-class stamp on the reply as well,
27:52because Catherine had asked her office
27:55to use the same kind the guardsman's
27:57mother had used. And in the box at
27:59Forest Lodge where William and Catherine
28:01keep the things they want the children
28:03to have one day, there's a two-page
28:05letter in careful blue ink with the
28:07corner of the second page folded down.
28:09It's worth knowing how much the sentries
28:11put up with, cuz most people have no
28:13idea the King's Guard at Buckingham
28:15Palace and at Windsor is a real guard
28:17with loaded rifles guarding the
28:19sovereign's homes, and has been for
28:21centuries. But to millions of visitors
28:23every year, the man in the box is part
28:25of the show. People shout at them, pull
28:28faces at them, lean on them, try to make
28:30them laugh, put children on their boots
28:33for a photograph, and the rules let the
28:35guardsman do one thing about it. If
28:36somebody comes too close, they stamp and
28:39shout at them to stand back from the
28:40King's Guard and if that doesn't work,
28:43they can bring the rifle round in front
28:45of them. That's all. They stand there
28:46and they take it because it's the job
28:49and then the men with the phones made a
28:50mistake. They posted their video, the
28:53one from the morning of the young
28:54guardsman standing still while they
28:56shouted in his face and flicked his chin
28:58strap and then stamping and shouting at
29:00them to stand back. They put it up with
29:03laughing faces and a caption about the
29:05toy soldier who lost his temper. They
29:07thought it was funny. The country
29:09didn't. Within a day, people had shared
29:11the clip tens of thousands of times and
29:13almost every comment underneath was
29:15about them, not about him. People who'd
29:17served wrote in. People whose sons and
29:19daughters had served wrote in. A woman
29:22who said she queued all night to see the
29:25Queen's coffin in 2022 wrote that she
29:28remembered the young soldier standing at
29:30the corners and that she'd like to know
29:32which of those grinning faces had ever
29:34stood still for anybody. And then
29:36somebody in the comments added one more
29:38line. Somebody who'd been in the castle
29:40grounds that afternoon. They wrote that
29:42they'd seen a little boy walked up to
29:44that same sentry box a few hours later,
29:47stand at the line, salute and leave
29:49something on the ledge. They didn't take
29:51a photograph. They said it didn't seem
29:53right, but they said they were fairly
29:55sure who the little boy was. That's how
29:57the story got out. Not from the palace,
30:00not from the regiment, from underneath
30:02the video of the men who jeered at him.
30:04The palace never confirmed it and it
30:06never will. The regiment won't talk
30:08about it, but by the middle of September
30:10it was going around everywhere and
30:12you've seen what the thumbnails did with
30:13it. William and Catherine broke down in
30:16tears. Britain is sobbing. He made us so
30:18proud and for once the thumbnails
30:20weren't entirely wrong. They'd only got
30:22the order wrong and the reason and the
30:24place. The tears were at a kitchen table
30:273 weeks later and they were for a woman
30:29who died 4 years ago. The men took their
30:31video down after 2 days. It didn't help.
30:34Somebody had saved it the way somebody
30:36always does. Then on Friday, October 9th
30:39in Belfast, a child in a crowd asked
30:42Catherine about her family. She smiled
30:44and said, "Thank you for asking." She
30:46said, "I have George and Charlotte, and
30:48the little one is called Louis." The
30:50people standing nearby say that when she
30:52said his name, she stopped for a second
30:55and smiled at nobody in particular, the
30:57way people do when they're thinking
30:58about something they can't say out loud.
31:00I'll be honest with you, I don't know
31:02for certain that she was thinking about
31:05the sentry box. Nobody does. But I like
31:08to think she was. Diana used to do
31:10something a little like what Louis did.
31:12The people who worked at Kensington
31:14Palace in her time remember it. She'd
31:16stop on her way in and out more often
31:19than you'd think and say good morning to
31:21the police officers on the gate and ask
31:23about their children by name and thank
31:25them. The people who work there remember
31:27her saying that the ones who stand
31:28outside in the rain all day are the ones
31:31nobody ever thanks. Louis never knew his
31:33grandmother. She died more than 20 years
31:35before he was born, but he does the same
31:37thing without anybody ever teaching him.
31:39Next August on the 31st, it'll be 30
31:42years since she died. Louis will be
31:44nine. He'll be at the Cenotaph in a
31:46fortnight, the people around the
31:48regiment say, on Remembrance Sunday with
31:51the rest of his battalion standing still
31:53in the November cold while the king lays
31:56his wreath. Somebody will probably film
31:58that, too. This time, nobody will laugh.
32:01And if a small boy watching on the
32:03television at home gives a salute in his
32:04direction, I don't suppose anybody will
32:07mind that, either. The young guardsman
32:08is back on duty now. Windsor, Buckingham
32:11Palace, St. James's, wherever the roster
32:14sends him, he stands still in his box,
32:16the people around the regiment say, and
32:18he lets the tourists take their
32:20pictures. And when somebody crosses the
32:22line, he stamps and shouts, the way they
32:25teach you, and in the breast pocket of
32:27his tunic, under the red cloth, there's
32:30a cheap gold-colored metal on a red
32:32ribbon with the number two scratched on
32:35the back. There's a book in the guard
32:37room at Windsor, too. The account says
32:39the guard report where the officer
32:41writes down anything that happens during
32:43the day, visitors, inspections, the
32:46times the guard changes. And on the 8th
32:48of September, in the officer's
32:50handwriting, there are two lines for the
32:52afternoon. The first records the
32:55incident in the morning and the men who
32:56crossed the line. The second says, "At a
32:59little after 3:00, a young member of the
33:01royal family paid compliments to number
33:04three sentry and departed." That's all
33:06it says. Paid compliments. It's the old
33:08army way of saying somebody saluted you.
33:11The officer who wrote it, the people
33:13around the regiment say, "Thought about
33:15it for a long time before he chose those
33:17words."
33:17>> [music]
33:17>> He could have written the name. He
33:19decided not to. He said afterwards that
33:21it was the boy's own business and that
33:24the guard book wasn't a newspaper. I
33:26keep thinking about the eight years of
33:28columns and comments and television
33:30panels about that boy, the handful, the
33:33cheeky one, the one his parents can't
33:35control. All those grown-up people so
33:38sure they knew what he was because of a
33:40face he pulled on a balcony when he was
33:41four. Not one of them will ever get a
33:44line in the guard book at Windsor for
33:45anything. And the boy himself has no
33:47idea, as far as anybody can tell, that
33:49any of this got out. He's eight. He's
33:52got a handstand to perfect and a high
33:54jump to win next summer because second,
33:57he's told his sister isn't good enough.
33:59The people close to the family say he
34:01asked his mother last week whether the
34:03soldier still had the medal. She told
34:05him yes. He nodded and went back to his
34:07football. Then a minute later, he came
34:09back and asked whether soldiers could
34:10keep things in their pockets on duty.
34:13His mother said she thought this one
34:14probably was. And on the second page of
34:17a letter at a box at Forest Lodge, in
34:19careful blue ink with a corner folded
34:21down, there's one line that I think will
34:23outlast every word any of them ever
34:25wrote about him. They say, "Nobody can
34:27control your boy." On the 8th of
34:29September, he stood still for my son,
34:32which is more than those grown men could
34:34do.

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