King Charles and Prince William both grew up knowing they would one day take the throne, and now it’s 12-year-old Prince George’s turn to ponder his future role as King. He’s slowly being introduced to royal duties by his parents, such as in May, when the Prince and Princess of Wales brought him to a special VE Day tea party with World War II veterans. And while George’s destiny as the future King might have been set in stone since his 2013 birth, it’s not something he was made immediately aware of, according to one royal author.

“He really has had a period of a normal childhood,” royal author Robert Lacey told People in its new cover story highlighting Prince George’s future role. The Prince and Princess of Wales were so keen to let George grow up normally as long as possible that he wasn’t actually told that he’d become King until he was “around seven,” per the outlet.

“William deliberately delayed this news until the last possible moment,” Lacey said. “It shows special care and thoughtfulness—it also tells us something about how William felt about the weight of the crown.”

It’s unknown exactly when the Prince of Wales was told he’d become King one day, but in his book William and Catherine: Their Lives, Their Wedding, royal biographer Andrew Morton wrote that Prince William “genuinely had no idea that he was any different from anyone else” until he started school.

“His innocence of his position was soon ended by fellow pupils, who left him in no doubt who he was,” the author continued. “On one occasion a classmate reportedly asked him: ‘Don’t you know the Queen?’ William looked at him and replied: ‘Don’t you mean Granny?’”

When it comes to Prince George, the Prince and Princess of Wales have been careful to give him as many “normalizing experiences” as possible, including taking part in sports and activities like any other school student. As for his future title, “I imagine that when William talks to George about things like this, he uses words like ‘destiny’ rather than ‘duty.’ ‘Duty’ has a sense of being trapped; ‘destiny’ has a sense of choice,” Lacey noted.