A lovely piece of mail arrived today from the UK. I had written to Prince William in June for his 40th Birthday. This reply arrived more than 7 months after I send my letter. I think this about ties for my longest reply with Queen Elizabeth's 90th Birthday which also took 7 months.
Normally, I would start this off by saying, something like "The envelope is the usual from the British Royals." But this is new. My first piece of mail with King Charles's cypher. The cypher along with the date circle and Royal Mail box are franked (stamped) onto the envelope. You can see it was placed over the "Air Mail" sticker and is not a part of the envelope.
The postmark is November 29th, last year. So, it took a very long time to get here. Part of that is because I am "temporarily" staying with friends after my Condo building had a fire last September, and I have been unable to live at my house. (Last time I slept in my bed, Queen Elizabeth was still alive and Boris Johnson was Prime Minister of the UK.)
The black random letters on the envelope are from the Forward Mail sticker. I removed the sticker, as it was covering the postmark.
The back of the envelope is the usual from the Waleses. It features the Coronet of the Son of the Heir Apparent with the name of the palace where their office is located. The couple have not changed this to use the Crown of the Heir Apparent. Possibly, they are waiting to use up with existing stationary.
The Black Coronet, Kensington Palace was printed on when the envelopes were made. William and Kate have used this stationary since 2016.
Prince William's Birthday reply that year was the first reply I received with this black stationery. Prior to that
Prince William & Princess Kate used their solo monogram on their replies.
Inside the envelope is the usual photocard for The Walses. In fact, this is the 6th birthday, that Clarence House has used this photo of Prince William. The front of the card features a photo of Prince William by Norman-Jean Roy. The photo is from William's 2017 interview with British GQ. You can read the interview here.
The back of the card features the usual sort of message. What is interesting is the card uses William's new title "Prince of Wales," not the title he held on his birthday "The Duke of Cambridge." This indicates the cards weren't printed until after Queen Elizabeth's death. We know Clarence House has been backlogged with mail, possibly due to staffing changes as Claudia Spens is no longer head of the correspondence section. We didn't see any of William's birthday replies prior to Queen Elizabeth's death and know they were still working on Prince Louis (April) & Princess Charlotte (May)'s birthday replies at the time.
The card says:
The Prince of Wales would like to thank you for the kind message you sent on his fortieth birthday.
It was very thoughtful of you and greatly appreciated by His Royal Highness who sends you his best wishes.
