Professional grace.

Byline: F.S. Aijazuddin

KING Farouk of Egypt once said, during a game of whist, that in the end there would be only five kings left the four kings in a deck of cards, and the king of England.

If ever affirmation was needed of his prescience, it was provided by the recent visit to Pakistan of the present Queen's grandson William, Duke of Cambridge and his wife Catherine. As the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, William is next in line after his father Prince Charles. He stands literally two heartbeats away from the British throne.

He and his wife came to Pakistan ostensibly at the request of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Relations Office. At that level, the visit was a refrain of earlier official visits by children and grandchildren of the monarch from the days of Queen Victoria.

Before 1947, they were sent to be introduced to parts of the British Empire they would in time inherit. Prince Albert Edward (later Edward VII) came in 1876, his son Prince Albert Victor in 1896, his brother later King George V visited twice first as the Prince of Wales in 1905 and again in 1911 as king-emperor of India. Edward VIII (the monarch who abdicated the throne) was introduced to India while still Prince of Wales.

Their smiles were infectious, their good humour untiring.

After Pakistan's independence, Queen Elizabeth II as head of the Commonwealth made two trips to Pakistan, in 1961 and in 1997. Her son Charles and his wife Camilla visited Pakistan in 2006 and after a gap of 13 years, his son William accompanied by his wife Catherine the next generation of royalty spent five days learning about a country that had such a hold over William's mother the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Visits by royalty are very carefully orchestrated. Every detail of the places they will visit, the people they should meet, the logistics of travel, the choices of colours the prime royal female will wear all are predetermined with precise aforethought. A shoal of palace staff and security details from Scotland Yard come well in advance to reconnoitre and to interact with local officials.

Once the programme is crystallised, everyone responsible for its smooth implementation knows what is be done and who is to do it. Little is left to chance, except the weather as the Cambridges discovered when their plane could not land in Islamabad owing to a thunderstorm. It returned to Lahore where overnight accommodation for an 80-strong entourage (including the press) had to be...