In the meantime, he’s hunting at Sandringham, with his girlfriend.

Ladbrokes is taking bets on when the shave will come. Will he still be carrying a beard on the 25th?

Crown Prince Haakon of Norway grew a beard on his honeymoon to New York in 2001, that he still sports. As his wife said she prefers him with the beard, it might explain why it is still there.

Felipe of Asturias also grew a beard on his honeymoon. It lasted for a while, but eventually a razor got the better off it.

(According to Klikk.no, we’re now seeing the return of the beard in men’s fashion, and the rougher, the better, so maybe Wills is just following the times?)

Personally, I think that on some men, a beard can look excellent. In Haakon’s case, it helped him to get some definition to the face, and he doesn’t look quite as young and eager now as he did without one. William… well, it seems inevitable that it will go at some point, given the RAF stance.

But does the beard make him appear more grown up?

In a lot of ways, it is true.

The Windsors were once from Hannover. They married German, up until Edward VII who married Danish Alexandra, but then his son married Mary of Teck. George VI married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, and their daughter turned around and married someone from the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.

The Belgians descend from Leopold I – the uncle of both Victoria and Albert, who hailed from Coburg in Bavaria.

The Bernadottes came from Pau, in France.

The Norwegian royal family emigrated from Denmark, as did the Greek royals.

And the Danish were really from Glücksburg in what is now Germany. Although, with some Danish princesses in the mix, and descending from Christian III of Denmark, as they are… and Schleswig-Holstein having been under Danish rule, I would not call the family completely Germans.

But at the same time… how long does a royal family have to be in a country before they really belong to that country?

I’ve seen King Harald classified a second generation immigrant to Norway – because his parents were born outside the country. King Olav was indeed born in England, and immigrated to Norway, from Denmark, in 1905 with his parents. But when Crown Princess Märtha was born, in 1901 in Stockholm – Norway and Sweden were still in an union, and thus she was born a princess of Sweden and Norway. Since then, the Norwegian royal family have married Norwegians.

The Glücksburg clan came on the throne in 1863 in Denmark. The family has made a policy out of marrying foreigners… or losing the right to the throne.

Leopold I was asked to be the King of the Belgians in 1831.

Jean Baptiste (Karl Johan) Bernadotte was elected Swedish Crown Prince in 1810.

The Hannovers came to the throne in the UK in 1714.

Again, how long do you have to be in a country before you belong?

Or, more precisely, it is not always easy to find them outside the geographic scope they publish for. Where many newspaper/magazine kiosks will have Cosmopolitan, Elle or Vogue, often in more than one language, they often don’t seem to cater to those of us who’re into royalty.

It is therefore I’m so very happy when I’m in Stavanger. Then I know that I can go to the Narvesen by the cinema (on Arneageren) and find a fairly broad selection of magazines that cover royals from European countries. There’s Billedbladet from Denmark, Royals from Belgium, Hello and Hola!, Svensk Damtidning, and so on. On my last visit, I was most pleased to find the new Swedish magazine dedicated solely to royalty – Queen.

Queen is a magazine I’ve been looking for in shops in Copenhagen, and I had almost decided on heading over the Øresund to Malmö in my quest for a copy. Now, I don’t have to do that.

(Did I enjoy the magazine? Yes, with a few minor exceptions. Was it worth getting? Definitely! It brightened an otherwise dreary plane trip.)

In 1996, I received my first copy of a book that would prove to give ample fruit to the interest in future investigations on the subject. The city was London, with its many bookshops, and in one of those… I received my first copy of Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain, by Eric R Delderfield.

The edition of the book, which I acquired, may not be quite up to date today – after all, Charles and Diana are no longer married; the Queen has two more grandchildren; Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother have passed away, et cetera. However, it is still an interesting book to rummage through, for the longer historic lines, and details… even if the more current history is not quite up to date.

Today, for basic information, I suspect one would just go to Wikipedia, instead of to an actual book.