Royal week: Prince George starts at Eton, Prince William at King Harald's funeral

Two dates for the Windsor family chronicle: on 8 September the eldest son of the Prince and Princess of Wales walked through the gates of Eton, and on 9 September his father stood in Oslo beside the coffin of the King of Norway.

Prince George starts at Eton

George, 13, began at Eton College on Tuesday 8 September. Both parents brought him — the Prince and Princess of Wales — and the headmaster, Simon Henderson, met the family on arrival.

Until now George was at Lambrook School in Berkshire, where his sister Charlotte (11) and brother Louis (8) remain. Eton is a boarding school, so for the first time the eldest of the three will live away from home during term. Windsor Castle is directly across the river: Eton sits on the opposite bank of the Thames.

Fees at Eton are £63,298 a year, and entry runs through stringent testing and interviews. Alumni include the actors Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Eddie Redmayne, and the former prime ministers Boris Johnson and David Cameron.

For his father it is a repeat of his own September: Prince William started at Eton in September 1995 and was photographed on his first day beside his parents in much the same way. Prince Harry went to Eton too. For accuracy's sake, this is a break with an older habit — King Charles III and his father were schooled at Gordonstoun in Scotland.

William and the Princess Royal at King Harald's funeral

The next day, 9 September, Prince William was in Oslo, representing King Charles III at the funeral of King Harald V of Norway, who died on 28 August at 89 after a reign of thirty-five years.

The Princess Royal attended in a personal capacity: she is godmother to the present King of Norway, Haakon VIII.

The procession went from the Royal Palace to Oslo Cathedral, with Haakon VIII and his family walking immediately behind his father's coffin. The service was led by the presiding bishop of the Church of Norway, Olav Fykse Tveit. The president of the Storting, Masud Gharahkhani, put it briefly and very Norwegianly: King Harald was close to the people, and was not afraid to meet them in his rubber boots.

Almost every European monarchy came: King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, King Frederik X and Queen Mary of Denmark, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, and Crown Prince Akishino and Crown Princess Kiko of Japan. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine attended as well.

King Harald was laid to rest in the crypt at Akershus Fortress, beside his predecessors.

Why it matters

The British monarchy works as continuity, and both of these stories are about exactly that. On one day a thirteen-year-old walks the road his father walked in 1995. On the next his father travels to bury the king of a neighbouring country, because Europe's monarchies are one interlinked family in which godparents, cousins and shared great-grandmothers count for more than protocol.

We will keep a standing royal file: appointments, tours, family dates, the money and the arguments about it. Without courtly reverence, and without condescension either — as an ordinary piece of important news.