Prince George’s school year starts soon, so these are the last days of the Cambridge family’s summer holiday. It’s been a quiet summer for them, which I bet they loved. The entire royal family generally shuts down for the month of August, and in years past, August was when the British tabloids would do some house-cleaning on the Cambridges. I can remember some negative press pieces being written in years past about Will & Kate’s disappearing act, and how little they worked and how Kate tries to keep William on a tight leash and all of that. But nothing like that came out this year – probably because the British press has a shiny new toy: the Duchess of Sussex and her trashy, dysfunctional family.
Will and Kate and their kids spent two weeks in Mustique with Carole and Mike Middleton last month, and since their return, the Cambridges have just been hanging out at Anmer Hall and spending time with their posh friends in Norfolk. Over the weekend, the Cambridges did travel to Scotland to put in some time with the Queen at Balmoral. A lot of the family was there, including Prince Charles, Prince Edward, the Countess of Wessex (who is one of the Queen’s favorites), the Wessex kids, Zara and Mike Tindall and more. Apparently, Kate took Prince George on his first grouse shoot. I would not want to see George with a hunting rifle in his hand, but maybe they didn’t even let him shoot anything.
Kate and William also attended church with the Queen on Sunday, with William riding in the front and Kate in the backseat with the Queen. Apparently, the kids didn’t go to church? Still too little for royal church services? Photos from one of the royal reporters, Emily Andrews:
#DuchessofCambridge joins the Queen in her Bentley for church this morning at Balmoral. Prince William was also there, plus the Phillips & Wessexes but no sign of Prince Harry & Meghan. pic.twitter.com/t3UtqMkk96
— Emily Andrews (@byEmilyAndrews) August 26, 2018
Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.
I won’t lie, I’ve sort of missed the Cambridges.
For sure! Looking forward to this fall, I think we will see alot of both couples.
I also miss the Cambridge’s.
Why does Kate look so tan? Mystique was a while ago, surely the tan would not have stayed around this long?
I wouldn’t doubt she’s out in their pool with the kids at Amner. That’ll top it off nicely 😊
Erm, it’s not hot here in the UK anymore… Probably just makeup or fake tan.
Tans don’t fade the second the sun goes in. I’m still super tan from the heatwave.
HK, you can get a tan ANY TIME the sun is out. It doesn’t have to be hot.
Balmoral life is lived outdoors. Even the highland sun will tan if you spend all hours outside, and Scottish summer days are wonderfully long.
If the Cambridges follow British aristocratic habits, their life at Anmer will be very outdoorsy, too.
Her makeup looks good in the new pictures.
Ugh! She has way too much blusher on. She looks like a clown!
It’s still stage grade makeup application.
I love that kid wrangling photo. Natural and sweet.
Mistake run in the royal family, duchess of Sussex goes hard on the blush too.
Oky
Meghan doesnt go heavy. Not really. Its noticable, but doesnt look like paint by numbers. It blends well on her skin.
I agree. No sign of blues…very natural looking and pretty!
Yup. Lovely makeup, she looks gorgeous. I love her outfit, too… looking very polished and pretty.
To the reference of “blues.” Was there that unsubstantiated PPD rumor again?
Generations of royals started out watching their parents hunt at a young age. The problem here is not George attending a shoot, it’s the royal tradition of hunting for sport that is at fault. The fact that the royals still choose to partake in it shows how out of touch they all are with modern society.
William & Harry’s love for hunting means the next generation are almost guaranteed to carry on with the tradition. Unfortunately nothing short of the government banning the practice in the UK will be able to put an end to it.
Agreed!
There was a pic of Kate riding to the lunch for the shoot with Zara, with George and Savannah in the back seat, buckled in. The article said the wives and kids join for the lunch after the shoot. George was no where near a rifle.
Well said @alexx
The UK has strict gun laws so I doubt George was handling a gun. If he was then people should be charged. He was hopefully only watching which is totally hypocritical by William when he talks about conservation. Until he stops hunting altogether, he needs to shut up about any conservation issues. Shooting grouse is wasteful killing anyway.
I hope you also feel it is hypocritical of Harry who also hunts but is involved in conservation.
Yes it is for the whole family to do so. The entire tradition aspect of this is moronic. It’s not even real hunting because the grouse are captured then released at once and they shoot at them like fish in a barrel. It’s gross to expose a young child to something like that. Both William and Harry are not much different from the dump boys in terms of game hunting. The only time it is acceptable for any kind of hunting is population control and it should be trained people doing it. Not posh aristos acting like their spoiled ancestors.
William and Harry do not hunt big game in Africa. Neither have ever been picture with an elephant’s tail in his hand. They hunt birds and wild boar. While I fully endorse outlawing hunting, their hunting does not conflict with their conservation activism.
I agree with Mac… partially. While some may find it ethically reprehensible to hunt animals for sport, it’s not an environmental issue. The kind of hunting they’re doing is legal and grouse are definitely not endangered. It’s not hypocritical to hunt grouse on your own property while protecting lions and elephants from going extinct.
That being said, while I don’t think Harry has ever hunted anything illegally, he did once pose with a dead water buffalo or something, didn’t he? He really needs to never do that again. Trophy hunting can be totally legal and sustainable, but the imagery is icky and contradicts the idea of the “sanctity” of large African wildlife that they’re trying to convey.
Ravine, Harry was a suspect in the hen harrier affair back in 2007. https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/nov/07/monarchy.wildlife
Yes. Its tradition. And them continuing this is not acceptable in modern age.
Yes. The BRF exists out of tradition, but that doesnt mean they should remain the same in those practices throughout centuries.
Yes. George is being introduced to family traditions so he accepts and enjoys them later in life by family associations, but that doesn’t make it ok.
This specific practice demonstrates overindulgence and waste. You kill what has been bred and injured to make it easily killed. And you kill more than can be consumed. The rest is not donated. The life is never valued. It was created, existed, and died for a horrible purpose.
Disclosure. I’ve been a hunter. I have nothing against hunters. This practice, however, has no place in this age. There is zero justification. And it is an example of how insignificant the BRF traditions can be
Exactly this.
How can they on the one hand be pro wildlife and conservation and on the other hand still maintain this hunting tradition? As said here above, it’s seems very outdated and out of touch.
I’m not a hunter myself and won’t defend the activity, but historically speaking, hunters were actually some of the earliest nature conservationists and prior to the Environmentalist movement of the 1960s, were essential to the creation of wildlife reserves, National Parks, etc. (Think Teddy Roosevelt and Ducks Unlimited, for instance). Wise hunters understand that protecting habitat and limiting the amount of game killed is essential to long-term maintenance of that very activity. Odd as it may be, those two interests can align! But I don’t think the highly managed and privatized Scottish grouse and deer hunting has been as good for Scottish wildlife as, say, preserving wetlands in Central North America has been, so I don’t like how the glamour of the Royals continues to lend glamour to that particular type of hunting.
The type of hunting they participate in is no better than canned hunting tbh. Like shooting fish in a barrel. I do understand the argument that conserving the habitat allows the game to thrive but as a species we should be conserving habitat just for the sake of it, not because we want to shoot animals. It’s so hypocritical of the royals to claim they care about wildlife on one hand and then to shoot it on the other. Just because grouse or deer aren’t endangered doesn’t mean they deserve to be shot for “sport”.
Livvers, I totally agree.
The grousemoor playgrounds that the aristos and ultra-rich enjoy so much are devastating for Scottish wildlife.
For example: https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/more-wildlife-destruction-on-more-scottish-grouse-moors/
Hunting can be a necessary part of conservation, especially in eco-systems where the natural peak predators are extinct, but Britain’s August shooting season doesn’t qualify. It’s just upscale canned hunting.
Pretty much every hunter I know does not support big game hunting, but then goes out on the weekend to shoot deer and fowl. For a lot of people the line is endangered animals should be conserved and protected, but deer, for instance, are a nuisance in much of the country because they don’t have enough predators. That’s where human hunters step in and control the population. As Livvers says, a lot of hunters see themselves as part of wildlife management, and as much as I have no desire to ever hunt myself, if the hunters are in areas where human intervention is needed to control certain populations, and they’re consuming the meat of the animals they kill, I guess I can’t complain about it.
I’m reading the Sapiens book now, and it’s quite fascinating when it comes to this. Arguably, humans were better off for the environment when we remained hunters/gatherers/foragers. It’s with the advent of agriculture that we started truly wrecking the planet (I mean, we were killing off megafauna that were well off before our arrival too, so I don’t know which is worse).
Yes, Derrière, our depredations accelerated with agriculture, but the record seems to suggest that human hunter gatherers wiped out the mega-fauna on every continent they colonised, thirty thousand years before the Neolithic revotulution.
Except in Africa, which is where Homo sapiens evolved, interestingly.
If someone eats what is shot I have no problem with it.
Sometimes they do eat what they shoot at these activities, but often not. They shoot too many and the bodies are discarded.
So much hypocrisy from these moochers – all their conservation work in Africa, and then they still partake in these ridiculous hunts where they kill thousands of animals in one day? They have gamekeepers on these estates take care of these tame animals so it’s easier to kill them. I like to look at their fashion and all, but they are honestly a disgusting family. It’s just wanton excess to demonstrate privilege.
So here in Canada the First Nations talk a lot about the environment but at the same time hunt whales., fish for large amounts of salmon, etc. There whale hunts are horrible but hunting is a tradition for many different cultures. Personally I hate hunting. But if we are going to call out cultures we need to call them all out for their hypocrisy First Nations included.
I don’t believe in hunting, or eating animals – but I also see a difference between the wanton killing of animals for funsies (like the Royals) and that there are many FN communities in Canada (I’m Canadian), especially in the North, where eating animals is a necessity because not much food is available. there is a HUGE difference. also, the royals and aristos kill thousands of animals in one shoot. They may eat some, but the purpose is not sustenance, it’s to demonstrate social status, wealth and privilege.
And you can’t really start comparing royals, who literally invented colonisation, with the situations faced by Indigenous communities, who were/are oppressed and marginalized due to said colonisation.
I’m just saying as you know that currently salmon are in short supply here in Canada due to global warming and junk in the ocean. We are losing whales as well. I understand that the First Nations have a rich culture and history. But we live in a changing world and personally it annoys when they speak to the environment and then have these horrible hunts. The First Nations like all other cultures need to move with the times. I agree that what happened in the past to their Nations was horrible. But to save this world all cultures need to give up the “hunts” and not look to the past.
Wild salmon are in danger because the environmental impact of farmed salmon. And the First Nation hunts are a drop in the bucket. I don’t hunt, but the hypocrisy isn’t with hunters that eat their kills and also support endangered conservation. The hypocrisy is with those of you eating meat that never see or kill the animals you consume in mass quantities and then point the fingers at hunters that shoot grouse. Where does your chicken, beef and pork come from? These are animals that barely see the light of day and you pay someone for the convenience of killing and packaging the meat so you can put it in your shopping cart. If I ate fowl I would prefer to eat a grouse that lived a life in the wild vs a factory farmed chicken that was tortured in it’s short life.
Yay, Sun in Libra! Preach.
Yes, this “fish in a barrel” hunting is disgusting and hypocritical. And Harry does hunt big animals on his rich friend’s private estate. He did it this year. And I think William does too.
Poor kid.
I find myself liking Kate a bit more these days, inexplicably. Maybe it was her glowing smile w kids this summer. That being said, has anyone noticed how GREAT she looks in those photos where she isn’t wearing a sh%& tonne of makeup?? I thought I saw one this weekend w her in a car, hair straight and not sausage curled and little to no makeup. She looked ten years younger!?
Makes me contemplate my makeup usage as my husband swears I look “better and younger” without it. I question his judgement, but being in Kate’s age range….I don’t know, maybe he’s on to something….
I recently quit tightlining my eyes and stopped messing with shadow. I have Lele-level hooded eyes which have only gotten worse with age, and for years would not go out of the house without using a little shadow to fake a lid crease. I’ve received more comments (favorable) on my appearance these last few months than ever. Usually a long the lines of: “I can’t put my finger on it, but you look different, younger.” And the occasional, “I like your makeup better this way!
Whatever, it works for me. I was getting tired of the makeup routine anyway.
Me too! Just recently I’ve dropped the whole eyeshadow routine—now I just wear a basic eyelid primer/base to even out the weird redness on my eyelids. It’s freeing to not spend so much time and effort. I also stopped the waterline lining…I was drifting into Duchess Kate territory I suspect w my black eyeliner.
Too much makeup ages women. A makeup artist once told me that unless you’re extremely pale (as in, practically albino), not to wear lipstick but to use tinted lip glosses, and to lay off blush unless it’s for an event where you will be in photos (like a wedding or big party). Day to day she recommended foundation to balance skin tone (I started using a beauty blender and get better coverage with less makeup), and a simple two or three tone eye shadow, and a single brush with mascara after heavily blotting the applicator. I don’t use blush, lipstick, or eye liner on a daily basis, and even though I am pushing 40, I get regular compliments about how young I look. I only do a full face for special occasions, and even then I don’t layer it on but keep it to minimal application and blend everything out really well. I wish I had known about this earlier in life, because I look at photos from my 20s and cringe at the heavy makeup.
That’s because as we age, less is more. Less makeup (with little to no powder) makes a difference when you’re not in your 20s anymore.
I find as I’ve aged, my make-up definitely lessened. I use a little under eye concealer (desperately needed as I have an allergy that gives me redness around my eyes), foundation (a CC cream from Chanel), mixed with a bit of brightening primer, a little blush (on the apple and then spread back), some brown (with a bit of metallic) shadow as “liner” (I find it makes my green eyes pop!), and mascara. Add a “natural” lip, and that’s it. The only powder is a bit in the T-zone, and I’m done!
Kate looks loads better with less makeup and a healthy amount of fat on her like in the kids photo.
When she applies her makeup on like a paint by numbers picture, uses botox, and drops weight you see how aged she looks.
HM looks happier in the car when she’s riding with Sophie Wessex.
This comment made me laugh aloud. Like taking petty to an Olympic level.
And happiest still when riding only with a dog.
This royal tradition of hunting while speaking out about conservation of animals has generated a lot of negative comments on social media this weekend. It has been quite amusing reading the comments from the Kate fans trying to justify their idol taking a 5 year old on a hunt or post-hunt outing.
I think people are going to have to take the RF for what they are—kind of stodgy, set in their ways and frankly outdated. I’ve learned to lower my expectations of Kate, fashion wise and personality wise. I loved her Waity years style (and seeming fire) and had hoped for great things post marriage a la Diana. Not so much clearly.
I have high hopes for Meghan, but I am trying to dial it down and recognize that she’s going to have to assimilate…as Harry is also one of them, whether anyone wants to admit it or not…and she’s either going to conform a bit or go down in flames. I’d like to think she won’t go full Kate, but I don’t foresee a blazing royal pioneer either. I worry also that this family drama has beaten her down a bit too. The last thing she wants right now is to make more waves, I’d imagine.
It’s a horrible practice and should be stopped like fox hunting. Hunting for population control should be the only time it’s allowed.
the UK practice of fox hunting with dogs is barbaric!! I saw a video of a woman who chanced upon a pack of hunting dogs trying to literally tear a fox apart, she chased them off and saved the fox. It just crawled into her arms terrified. Filled me with so much disgust and rage.
Grouse shooting for sport, if the grouse are to be eaten, which mostly are, is less barbaric than killing animals in a slaughterhouse. So, unless you are a vegetarian or a vegan and don’t have leather shoes and handbags, it is hypocritical to complain.
And fishing, just to throw the fish back, and fox hunting is barbaric.
Most grouse that are shot aren’t eaten. The vast majority are simply wasted. It’s a useless practice.
Spidee
Most are not eaten. Each hunter might shoot 5 to 10 in a day. They consume maybe 2 at most. And sometimes they opt for another dish and do not eat the fowles at all. The meat is discarded.
And no. Because I own a leather handbag or eat meat does not invalidate my opinions on hunting. Nor does it change the facts.
I totally respect your opinion and agree that if the grouse are not eaten it is wrong, although many are sold to restaurants throughout the UK. But I stand by my view that people who are ethical vegetarians should not use leather products.
Wish I could spend the whole summer vacationing with my children. What a life
Shhhh… she needs to complain about something in regards to W&K or she might spontaneously combust from the bitterness being held inside.
I thought Kate looked beautiful – very regal and mature, very Future Queen Consort, loved the hat and hair and suit. Blush was a little too strong, but she probably figured she’d be snapped through tinted car windows. Aside from that I thought she looked lovely.
Hunting season is about to open where I live, it’s hardly just the royals – the ads all talk about what a “necessary part” of preserving our wildlife it is . . . I hate it, but it’s hypocritical, because I eat meat, so hardly one to preach.
I imagine the estate up there is one of the best managed in the world, and this is part of their culture.
The DM says Harry and Meghan are up there now. Can we believe them, has anyone seen them?
It is odd Harry and Meghan weren’t spotted at church w the rest of the crew.
My family and I toured Balmoral in June and they had quite a lot of information about the wildlife on the estate and the gamekeepers, population management, etc. While I myself don’t like hunting, as long as it’s managed and used, it’s not much different than us eating meat from the supermarket, is it? Does one eat Grouse?? IDK.
@Persistent – who knows if they are even there? It’s just what the DM said, they are “believed to be” – DM makes stuff up out of whole cloth, they have the journalistic principles of an amoeba (sp?). Maybe it’s not like the Christmas and Easter photos where it’s one photo op for the whole family, but TQ going with different sections of the family on different Sundays. As H&M have Scottish titles, too, seems to me sooner or later they will make their appearance there.
Is Craithie an Anglican Church or do the royals attend Presbyterian services when they attend in Scotland? I’ve been to Anglican services but not Presbyterian. If anyone knows, are they greatly similar?
@Ms. Turtle – I don’t know about grouse, but I do eat chicken and beef (although the latter sparingly because of health warnings) and pork. I live in one of the most tick infested areas of the country – even in manicured suburbs, no one goes out for a walk anymore without long socks, or slacks tucked into high shoes, and if you go anywhere slightly woodsy you have to inspect each other stark naked when you get home, never mind the poor dogs.
It’s the deer, of course, and we have taken so much of their habitat that they are everywhere. My friend came out midsummer and found several calmly eating her Rose of Sharon, she went in and got a couple of pots and pans to bang together in the doorway, they looked up briefly, then went back to eating her shrubs.
I don’t think there are easy answers to this one.
@violet. In my town, they gave the deer birth control and it got the numbers down.
Grouse is eaten, but grouse are not overpopulated and most of the birds that are shot are simply wasted. It’s not like deer, which are overpopulated in many areas and the meat of which is usually eaten.
I know it’s tradition, but I find it sad to desensitize a child this way. That said, Grouse hunting is not comparable to poaching of endangered wildlife.
Kate has really matured in a good way! She looks gorgeous here. Love her suit and hat
Crathie is Church of Scotland – Presbyterian. The minister of my church preached there two years ago when the Queen was at Balmoral and spent the weekend with her at Balmoral as is normal practice. There is a big difference between C of S and most C of E. Church of Scotland is much simpler with just hymns, prayers and the sermon. Any choir is just made up of ordinary dressed people. No robes, processions or catechism.
Harry and Meghan HAVE been on holiday in Scotland. They stayed for 5 days with Charles and Camilla at the Castle of Mey, the old home of the Queen Mother in Caithness, the very north of Scotland. Charles handed it over to the Scottish National Trust but rents it for a week in August each year and that is when H and M stayed there.
Hubby is a hunter–for food. He does not support big game hunts. He once made a very good point to me–what is better? Eating chicken or beef which comes from a factory farm where the animal lived a miserable life or eating something caught in the wild where the animal lived wild and free? A good hunter kills instantly. No pain, no suffering. Not like a slaughterhouse. The world will never be vegetarian so it is silly to expect that and demand it of all others. I once was vegetarian myself and eat mostly fish now but Hubby is right. Good hunters respect and love nature and the wilderness. They do not support killing and wasting. I do not know of ANY hunters who kill more than they need. Do the royals not eat the birds? Or give them to staff, etc to eat? I do not support blood sports like bull fighting and fox hunting but hunting for food is acceptable. Certainly better than picking your meat from the grocery store.
Grouse shooting kills many more birds than necessary, and many more than are actually eaten.
@OkieOpie and Tina – thanks for the info, this is not something I know much about, having grown up urban and now living mostly suburban.
I wish someone would start giving the deer in our area birth control! It’s unbelievable how many show in our backyards. The kids love them, of course, but if I took a count down my street and the one across, every other household would have someone who found that circular rash indicating Lyme and had to go get antiobiotics. We haven’t yet, but I am very careful about what we wear out in the yard.
Sorry about the OT, all, but it did have to do with hunting.
Kate looks beautiful in these photos ❤