Why royal protocol is changing faster than ever

The monarchy’s more tactile, informal approach is a sign of a generational leap between reigns

“A hug?” the King was heard to say at a Buckingham Palace reception this week. “Why not?” His face, poking out of the middle of a scrum of New Zealand rugby players, said it all: rarely has he looked more surprised and delighted.
Not often has the palace seen such openly affectionate scenes during official engagements. In fact, you do not have to go back too many decades to imagine they rarely happened behind the scenes either.
Here is the monarchy in 2024. Tactile, unbuttoned and increasingly, dare one say it, “normal”. A few days earlier, the Prince and Princess of Wales released a video featuring hugs of their own, this time with their children and each other as the Princess told the watching world of her relief that she had finished her chemotherapy.
The footage, which showed William, Catherine, George, Charlotte and Louis during their summer break in Norfolk, ranks amongst the most intimate glimpses of the royals at play in British history.
It is a sign of the times, a generational leap between reigns, a desire to connect with communities of all ages, and down largely to the personalities of senior members of the Royal family. It is also enough to have Queen Mary reach for her smelling salts. Within Charles’ lifetime, a regal hug would have been utterly unthinkable.
His great-grandmother Queen Mary, seared in the public imagination for her formidable corset and rigorous regal manner, was such a stickler for court protocol that she once refused to receive her own son because he was not wearing an appropriate hat. In a 1930 visit to Bethlem hospital to open a new ward, she is said to have walked along a red carpet that ended too soon – and refused to walk the remaining six feet without it.
Much has changed since then, but it took time.  
The reign of George VI, particularly the influence of the Queen Mother, made the Royal family a shade less detached and more approachable. Elizabeth II softened it again, introducing the public walkabout, inviting more people into the palace, and in later years becoming known for her warm smile and grandmotherly reputation.
Hugs were not off-limits – a 1991 visit to Washington DC saw her enveloped in a hug by resident Alice Frazier, smiling throughout.
But they were also not commonplace. A year later, during a visit to Australia, a republican prime minister caused outrage by putting his arm around the then Queen and found himself dubbed the “Lizard of Oz” by a furious British press.
Prince Harry, writing in his 2023 memoir, said he had “wanted to hug” his grandmother after watching her enjoy her 2002 Golden Jubilee concert.
“But of course I didn’t,” he said. “Out of the question. I never had done and couldn’t imagine any circumstance under which such an act would be sanctioned.” His mother Diana, Princess of Wales, he said, had attempted to hug the late Queen just once, during which “Granny swerved to avoid contact, and the whole thing ended very awkwardly with averted eyes and murmured apologies”.
The Duchess of Sussex, for her part, has spoken of her surprise that the “formality on the outside [of the palace] carried through on the inside”. “I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger,” she told her Netflix documentary. “I didn’t realise that that is really jarring for a lot of Brits.”
Three months before it was broadcast, Prince Charles had become King Charles upon the death of his mother. As he returned to Buckingham Palace as monarch, he was as surprised as anyone to be greeted by spontaneous hugs and kisses from members of the public – and delighted.
The moment was so striking, one biographer records, that his private secretary Sir Clive Alderton later told staff that Charles’ reign would be characterised by “informal formality”. “He is a genuinely warm and affectionate man who is not embarrassed to express that in a public way,” says a palace source now. “He’s a human and relatable person.”
If the late Queen was not hugged, they pointed out, it was because of the “generational respect”, which meant it “would have felt wrong to even attempt it”.
There are no such qualms about the King.
“You only need to look at his face to see his reaction – he loved it and was grateful for all the support.” For Robert Jobson, author of Charles’ biography Our King, he has “always been a pretty good hugger, pretty relaxed about it”.
“The people around the Royal family can be strict, but the actual royals themselves have always been fairly relaxed,” he says. “He [the King] is quite tactile and always has been. He’s got a twinkle in his eye.”
The King’s enforced time away from the public earlier this year, while he was treated for cancer, left him “quite frustrated”, Jobson added, leaving him particularly pleased to be back among people. As Prince of Wales, Charles had something of a history of having fun with his role when he could, with 73 years as heir to the throne leaving him less bound by convention than his mother.
Sometimes surprising those he meets with a lack of formality, he was seen breakdancing in 1985, being kissed on the cheek by a red-lipsticked Spice Girl in 1997, and having a cheeky 2012 exchange with actress Gillian Anderson, which saw her offer to tuck him up in bed for a story and him reply “Yes, please”. 
Nowadays, as in the later reign of Elizabeth II, visitors to castles and palaces are briefed on protocol – how to address the monarch and whether to bow or curtsy – but “no offence is taken”, says a source, if they choose not to.
Those who live and work there sometimes appear less bothered about protocol than critics watching from outside. The recent obituaries of Lord Fellowes, who served as private secretary to Elizabeth II, record how he liked to tell people: “We don’t have protocol here, just bloody good manners.”
There are tales, possibly apocryphal, about the late Queen or Queen Victoria (depending on the telling) watching as an overseas guest began to drink from the finger bowl at dinner and then picking up their own to do the same, so as to put them at ease rather than embarrass them.
That the pace of change is speeding up is indisputable. Take the statement from the King in July, ahead of the men’s Euros football final. “If I may encourage you to secure victory before the need for any last-minute wonder-goals or another penalties drama, I am sure the stresses on the nation’s collective heart rate and blood pressure would be greatly alleviated!” he said.
Well-received by the public as it was, it is unthinkable that it could have come from the pen of any monarch before him. And so continues the era of “informal formality”. Although not every member of the Royal family has suddenly turned into a hugger.
The Princess Royal, when offered a hug by a private secretary shortly after the death of her mother at Balmoral, is said to have replied: “That is the last time that’s going to happen.” But the same can’t be said for the King and future King. 
On Wednesday night, as he hosted New Zealand rugby players in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace, he ticked all the official engagement boxes of shaking hands, receiving a gift, and sending his apologies for not being able to travel to their country during his October tour on doctors’ orders.
In words somewhat less conventional, he added: “I much appreciate this chance to meet you and to have such a warm hug from you. Very healing.”