We’re used to seeing Prince William look smart, suited and booted for royal engagements, generally opting for a dapper navy suit, so when the Prince of Wales changed his look entirely for an appearance on Thursday, royal watchers were left swooning.
The 41-year-old donned camouflaged British Army gear for a visit to Salisbury Plain, rocking head-to-toe army attire for the engagement which saw him ride in a tank, shake hands with soldiers and traverse their training ground.
Princess Kate has been known to get dressed into full army gear for engagements too, so we bet she was happy to see her husband get stuck into the occasion.
Prince William’s fans were overwhelmed with glee by his transformation, absolutely flooding Instagram with praise for the future King.
“How handsome the Prince looks as a soldier,” one commented, with a second agreeing: “With all due respect, His Royal Highness is so handsome!!
An American fan joked: “This is hotter than my kitchen after cooking for Thanksgiving!!” and a fourth added: “What a great Thanksgiving gift from my no. 1 crush!!!! Our hot and handsome Prince William.”
Another fan noted that the royal looked at home on the army training ground, writing: “When I look at these pictures I feel like William is in his comfort zone, his happy place. He’s such a handsome soldier too.”
Though the father of four served as a regimental officer in the British Army before undertaking attachments to The Royal Air Force and The Royal Navy, he never fought in combat, but it’s no surprise that he looks at home among the army, with Prince Harry revealing in Spare that he and William used to take part in military training exercises in their younger years.
Writing about an occasion in 2005 when he and Prince William spent a day training with the British Special Boat Service, Harry shared horrifying details about the injury that befell him during an unofficial training day.
“In one exercise we scurried down a flight of metal stairs. Someone cut the lights, to make it more interesting, I suppose. In the pitch dark, four steps from the bottom, I fell, landed on my left knee, which was immediately impaled on a fixed bolt sticking out of the floor,” the Duke of Sussex wrote.
“Blinding pain washed over me. I managed to get up, keep going, finish the drill. But at the end of the exercise we jumped off the boat’s helipad, into the water, and I found my knee wasn’t working,” Harry continued.
Prince Harry went on to fight in Afghanistan, regularly wearing the uniform Prince William wore this week, with the Duke of Sussex shared the realities of his time in the army in both his memoir Spare, and during his interview with Anderson Cooper, explaining: “It got me out of the spotlight from the UK press. I was able to focus on a purpose larger than myself, to be wearing the same uniform as everybody else, to feel normal for the first time in my life.”
source: hello magazine.com
