The baby is now third in line to the British throne.
Already more than a week past her due date, the 31-year-old Kate was taken to the St. Mary’s Hospital in Paddington around 6 a.m. Monday.
A royal spokesman earlier siad that the duchess travelled by car from Kensington Palace to the Lindo Wing with the Duke of Cambridge (Prince William).
This is the same hospital where Princess Diana gave birth to both her sons.
The news, when it finally came, was hardly a surprise. But after the days of speculation, of webcams showing live scenes of inactivity, of bystanders photographing one another and of wilting reporters straining for new ways to say nothing was happening, the arrival of the newest royal heir Monday afternoon turned out to be as much a relief as a joy.
The baby, a boy who weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces, will not be king for some time: He has to wait in the long line behind his great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II; his grandfather Prince Charles; and his father, Prince William. Nor are British monarchs as important in the wider scheme of things as they were in, say, the 16th century.
But the birth of the as-yet-unnamed (at least as far as we know) royal son of William and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, gave Britain a chance to celebrate itself by connecting its past to its present, something it is especially good at.
It also gave the wider world a chance to demonstrate once again that there is something about royal occasions that can apparently turn republicans into monarchists, however briefly, even in countries that renounced their own monarchies long ago.
Failing that, it gave people here something to focus on that did not have to do with the bad political situation, the bad economy or the bad weather.
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