Princess Charlotte “Is Really Taking Care of Her Mum” As Princess Kate Continues to Receive Treatment for Cancer

In addition to famously looking after her brothers, Prince George and Prince Louis—and making sure that both are toeing the line at royal engagements, especially her younger brother—it seems that Princess Charlotte is also looking after her mother, the Princess of Wales, as she continues to receive treatment for cancer.

Royal biographer Ingrid Seward said, per The Mirror , that Charlotte is “protective” over her mother and is “taking care” of her, Seward said: “I think that Charlotte is really taking care of her mum,” said Seward who, in addition to writing numerous royal biographies, is also editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine. Speaking specifically about the mother-daughter duo’s interaction at Trooping the Colour last month, Seward said “It was quite sweet the way she [Charlotte] stood in front of her [on the Buckingham Palace balcony] and they kept chatting. Charlotte seems to be very full of admiration for her mother, which I think is a lovely thing, too.”

Kate is famously close to her mother, Carole Middleton, and Seward added that “Kate and Charlotte are great friends and I think to Kate, their bond is very precious,” she said. “The mother-daughter relationship is obviously particularly important to Kate because she has such a close relationship with her own mother.”

In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of Charlotte looking after her mother at Trooping the Colour, as Kate and her three kids are inside the carriage, the rainy weather in London that day steamed up the windows of the carriage, “meaning they were unable to wave to the adoring crowds outside,” The Mirror writes. “Mother and daughter took to cleaning the windows so they could greet the royal fans.”

But at one point, Kate stops wiping, but “her dutiful daughter continues and cleans up the carriage’s main window for the two of them,” the publication reports. And, when she wasn’t cleaning the carriage window, she was looking after “her cheeky little brother, Prince Louis, too,” according to The Mirror . “At several points, nine-year-old Charlotte would dart a glance at Louis to make sure he was behaving.”

After Trooping the Colour, Kate was “exhausted afterward,” a source said, per OK . “It was a long day, and it took a lot out of her.” Of her vulnerable social media post on June 14, where she revealed she would be at the King’s birthday parade the next day, the source continued “She absolutely has bad days, and that’s something she wouldn’t have shared in the past,” they said of her words in the post, accompanied by a photo taken by Matt Porteous. “Kate’s not the only person battling cancer, and she realizes that being truthful about her struggle will help others.”

According to Ailsa Anderson, former press secretary to Queen Elizabeth, “She might be the Princess of Wales, but she is still a mother and wife and going through the same set of emotions and worries and fears as anyone else in that set of circumstances would be,” she said.

The source speaking to OK added that “Her display of strength proves she’ll make a worthy queen one day,” they said. “She’s a fighter—for herself, her family, and her country.”