Prince William plans to trade Buckingham Palace for down-to-earth digs

Prince William is already thinking ahead to his future as King, and it looks like his reign will come with a twist. 

According to a source speaking to The Times, the Duke of Cambridge and wife Kate Middleton have no intention of making Buckingham Palace their royal residence when William ascends the throne.

In fact, William plans to keep things more down-to-earth or more accurately, country-style — than we might expect from a future monarch. 

"He’ll be asking, if [the children] are still young when I take on the big job, how do I maintain that privacy?" the source said. 

"I’m pretty sure that they won’t move into BP. You can’t imagine him saying, Great, let’s move back to central London."

Instead of the grandiose palace life, it seems the family plans to continue embracing their more private, rural lifestyle.

The Prince is keen to maintain a hands-on approach to his children's lives, likely continuing school runs once he becomes King. 

"William has played a very smart hand. He has chosen it. He has shaped it as he wanted to," the insider revealed. 

"He was thinking about this early because he didn’t want to drift and then find that he hadn’t had a say in it. It’s one of the defining qualities of the man."

An insider told Harper's Bazaar that "succession planning" has been in the works for years, with royal author Tom Quinn noting that it even began before King Charles’s diagnosis. 

"I mean, he’s the oldest Prince of Wales to become king in history, so succession planning had begun before Charles came to the throne simply because of the age issue," Quinn said.