"It's a Boy!"

Somewhat tense but never impatient, the crowd had waited at the gates since early morning, but it was not until the afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen that the superintendent of Buckingham Palace at last made his appearance. His face wore a broad grin, and his hand bore a simple two-sentence statement handwritten on pale grey stationery and signed by the Queen's four doctors. "Is it a boy?" shouted someone in the crowd as the superintendent hung the gilt-framed announcement upon the railings. "Yes, it is," he shouted back, and the crowd cheered.

It had been a long five days since the doctors first called upon the Queen and announced that her third child--the first to be born to a reigning British sovereign since Beatrice, Queen Victoria's last-was due "any moment." Two days later, the birth was still "imminent," but a faint wave of uneasiness had begun to spread across the nation. Then, at lunchtime on Friday, the long-awaited report was issued that all four doctors were once again "in attendance." Finally, a little after 3:30 p.m., Prince Philip burst out of Buckingham Palace's Belgian suite, beaming. "It's a boy!" he told attendants, and then rushed to telephone Prince Charles at Cheam School.

Anyone who listened to TV or the radio would have known the news at least eight minutes* before the crowd in front of the palace. Others were duly notified in the traditional manner, even if it came as no surprise. A handwritten statement was posted at the Home Office, for by custom the Home Secretary is the "first" to be informed after the royal family; a little later, a third announcement was pinned to the gates of Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London. Throughout the kingdom, church bells pealed, and at Lloyd's the famed Lutine bell was rung twice to signal "good news" already known.

At Portsmouth, H.M.S. Vanguard, last of Her Majesty's battleships, fired a salute. Cannon roared at Windsor and Cardiff castles, and as far away as Gibraltar and Accra. Over Buckingham Palace the Queen's huge ceremonial standard was unfurled, and to all ships and shore stations the Admiralty sent a signal: "Birth of a son to H.M. Queen Elizabeth announced. Splice the main brace." As messages poured in from governments all over the world, 81-year-old Poet Laureate John Masefield worked over a bit of verse that began: "O child descended from a line of kings ..."

The child-descended, 7 lbs. 3 oz. and still nameless, was scarcely 24 hours old before his mother's subjects began deciding on his future. He stands second in line to the throne after Prince Charles. Would he have to follow the dreary tradition of most royal sons, growing up in uniform only to lead a life of ceremonial drudgery? "A royal prince," suggested the London Express, "who was a doctor or a nuclear physicist or an engineer--that would be a break with tradition."

* Except for listeners to the BBC's Home Service, which had just launched into Cesar Franck's tired Symphony in D Minor, decided not to interrupt it, and held back the news for 35 minutes.

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