Police in England are hunting for a pair of masked thieves who broke into a farm building on the royal family’s Windsor Castle estate not far from the cottage on the estate where the Prince and Princess of Wales live.
The burglars scaled a 6-foot fence to break into Shaw Farm, a working farm on the 15,800-acre estate, and then “made off with a black Isuzu pickup and a red quad bike,” Thames Valley Police told NBC News on Monday in revealing the Oct. 13 heist. “No arrests have been made at this stage, and an investigation is ongoing.”
They escaped by smashing through a security gate with the stolen vehicle, police said.
William and Kate have lived at Adelaide Cottage, near the children’s school, since 2022. (Getty)
William and Kate were reportedly in residence at the time at nearby Adelaide Cottage during the 11:45 p.m. break-in but were not in any danger, police said. They have lived at the cottage, near the children’s school, since 2022.
Nonetheless, the news had to be jarring, as NBC News royal contributor Emily Nash noted.
“As parents of young children, the prince and princess want to ensure that the place they’re living in is as secure as possible, and I’m pretty sure that is the case,” Nash told NBC News. “But it’s obviously concerning when anything like this happens, particularly in an area that you’d expect to be very secure.”
The security breach was the second major one in nearly three years. On Christmas Day 2021 a man wielding a crossbow made it onto the grounds and declared he intended to kill Queen Elizabeth II. Jaswant Singh Chail received nine years in prison after his February 2023 conviction for treason.
Windsor Castle itself is one of the residences of King Charles and Queen Camilla, though they were not home at the time. Charles was in Scotland, and the queen was reportedly in India ahead of their tour to Australia and Samoa.
Senior royal family members have their own security detail, and the young royals were not in danger during the incident, BBC News reported. Neither Kensington Palace nor Buckingham Palace had any comment, as is normal procedure regarding security issues.