The Lindo Wing at St. Mary's Hospital was a very popular destination on Tuesday, July 23. One day after Kate Middleton and Prince William welcomed their first child, a baby boy, the little bundle of joy's paternal grandparents paid an unexpected visit.
Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, arrived at St. Mary's Hospital at approximately 5:28 p.m. Well-wishers outside the building cheered as they waved and were led into the Lindo Wing by the Duke and Duchess' private secretary and St. Mary's lead clinician Jonathan Ramsay. They exited a little less than an hour later, to more cheers. "[He's] marvelous…You'll see in a minute," Charles told one reporter when asked about the royal baby.
The Prince of Wales was originally scheduled to be in Yorkshire on Tuesday, but he changed his plans to squeeze in some face-to-face time with the baby. Speaking about his grandson prior to the visit, he said he was "thrilled and very excited." His wife, 66, added, "I think the mother, son, father…are doing well. I think it's a wonderfully uplifting moment for the country."
As well as for the family, of course. "Grandparenthood is a unique moment in anyone's life, as countless kind people have told me in recent months," Charles said in a statement shortly after the prince's birth on Monday, July 22, "so I am enormously proud and happy to be a grandfather for the first time."
Incidentally, Charles and Camilla weren't the only grandparents in the Lindo Wing on Tuesday. The Duchess' mother and father, Carole and Michael Middleton, also paid a visit to their newborn grandson.
"He is absolutely beautiful," Carole gushed of the new little prince. "We are so thrilled."
Asked how the "first cuddle" with her grandson was, she replied, "Amazing! It's all coming back."
