The future of the monarchy was in trainers yesterday. Prince William began his first overseas tour on behalf of the Queen by playing rugby with a group of ten-year-olds and going for a sail around Auckland harbour.
He displayed an informality that made it seem unlikely that anyone would have been foolish or fawning enough to call him Your Royal Highness (though a group of schoolboys felt correspondingly free to attempt to cripple him Down Under).
On a day that started more like a holiday jaunt than an official visit, his choice of footwear (Asics, brand-watchers) seemed appropriate.
But nothing done by the Royal Family is entirely without significance, and when the Prince stepped out of a car at Eden Park stadium in Auckland, in brown cords, open-necked shirt and trainers the message was clear: the Royal Family is changing, and stuffiness is a thing of the past. No one would have mistaken William’s low-key arrival — on a scheduled flight, with an entourage of only four — for a visit by the Queen.
Whether the monarchy is changing fast enough for everyone is another matter. As the Prince touched down, the country’s biggest Sunday newspaper, the Star-Times, called for a republic (while — characteristic of New Zealand’s confused relationship with the monarchy — on another page it listed places to spot the royal visitor).
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“William’s charm cannot disguise the fact that the system which produced him is rotten,” the newspaper said. “It confers power, privilege and wealth on the basis of birth. The system will turn Charles, a British aristocrat, into the King of New Zealand. This is about as barmy a way of choosing our head of state as you could get.”
Charles, it added by way of an afterthought, was “a prat who cheated on his glamorous young wife from the start of their marriage”.
Deference, then, was notable by its absence, not least on the rugby pitch.
At Eden Park, the home of next year’s rugby World Cup, the Prince met John Key, the Prime Minister, and the All Blacks captain Richie McCaw. William threw a ball with a group of ten-year-olds whose main aim seemed to be to land a pass in the Royal nether regions when he wasn’t looking. They succeeded. The Prince emitted a gasp, and afterwards one of those involved, a boy named Ryan Wallace, found it hard to resist indulging in some post-match crowing. “We got him in the Crown Jewels!” he said. William chatted with another All Black, Ali Williams, whose conversational gambit on their previous encounters had been to tease the Prince about his baldness. “Last time we met I told him he was losing it a bit,” he said. “This time I didn’t because I am too.”
Whether or not he is thinning on top — and, more importantly, whatever their views on the monarchy — the New Zealanders displayed a fondness for William.
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“He is very good-looking,” said Kate Saunders, 36, a mother of three waiting outside Eden Park. “We love seeing the royals down here. It’s our heritage too, our grandparents’ generation called it the mother country. But the time will come when it is increasingly irrelevant. It doesn’t mean it’s not exciting to see them, though.”
In Auckland harbour the Prince took a spin round the bay on a former America’s Cup yacht, helping winch up the mainsail and taking a turn at the wheel.
Enjoyable though that may have been, it was never far from the Prince’s mind that he was there to represent the Queen at today’s opening of the Supreme Court in Wellington. What, he was asked, did that mean to him? “It means an awful lot,” he said.
Dressed in a korowai, or cloak of kiwi feathers — but no trainers — William was greeted by Maori elders with a hongi, the traditional welcome of pressing noses together, when he arrived at the new court building for the ceremony.