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He may be second in line to the English crown, but Prince William apparently sees himself as a man of the people. The Duke of Cambridge was spotted in London Wednesday selling copies of The Big Issue—a British newspaper sold by homeless people to gain a legitimate source of income—even going so far as to sport the vendors’ trademark red hat and jacket.
Despite his noble attempt to remain incognito, a passing pleb rumbled the royal and posted about the future king’s humble gesture online. “My [brother-in-law] was in London today and saw a celebrity, so he took a photo at a distance,” retired Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Matthew Gardner wrote on LinkedIn on Wednesday. “The celebrity saw the ‘covert surveillance’ effort and crossed the road to investigate further. What an honour to have a private moment with our future king who was humble and working quietly in the background, helping the most needy.”
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Gardner also claims that the royal wouldn’t let his loyal subjects leave without making a sale. “The finale to this unique occasion was when Prince William asked my [brother-in-law] if he wanted to buy the ‘Big Issue’, to which he replied ‘I have no change,’ Gardner writes. “At this point William produced a mobile card machine… You cannot teach that! Priceless, or should I say ‘Princely’.”
News of William’s gesture comes just four days after he stood alongside his grandmother on the balcony of Buckingham Palace as part of lavish nationwide celebrations marking 70 years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign. Her primary residence boasts over 50 bedrooms, but William himself is no slouch when it comes to sprawling properties. Less than three miles from the spot where he was seen selling charity newspapers on Rochester Row stands Kensington Palace, where he lives in Apartment 1A along with wife Kate Middleton and kids George, Charlotte and Louis. The Cambridges were also gifted Anmer Hall, a Georgian country house in Norfolk, by the Queen following their royal wedding in 2011. And as if that wasn’t enough, they also have their own Scottish getaway, Tam-Na-Ghar, on the Balmoral estate. The private cottage is thought to have been gifted to William by the Queen Mother shortly before her death in 2002.
He may boast an eye-wateringly valuable property portfolio of his own, but Prince William has long used his royal platform to campaign for more support for homeless people in Britain. He was just a young boy when his mother, Princess Diana, took him to visit a shelter for people sleeping rough in London. And in 2005, he became a patron of Centrepoint, a charity which supports young homeless people. The Big Issue, which William was selling this week, was launched in the U.K. in 1991 and was inspired by a now-defunct New York publication, Street News, which was designed to offer the city’s homeless population a source of self-sufficiency.
