Princess Charlotte joined the Prince and Princess of Wales at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow on Saturday, taking in world records, netball and judo on the penultimate day of competition at the Hydro arena.

The Wales family attended as guests of honour, with Prince William and Princess Catherine — still known publicly as the Princess of Wales — meeting athletes whose careers have been backed by SportsAid, the charity Catherine has supported as patron since 2013 (Hello! Magazine).

Princess Anne, Prince Edward and their spouses were also at the Games, making the Edinburghs a fixture of the royal box alongside the Waleses (People). The Duchess of Edinburgh, 59, is patron of both Sport England and Commonwealth Games England, which gave her outing an official dimension as well as a family one.

Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, was a constant presence beside her great-niece. She greeted Prince William before the families settled in to watch Devon Briggs break the world record in the Men's Para-Cycling C3 1000m Time Trial. At one point Sophie leaned over to hug Charlotte, who returned the hug and smiled but appeared distracted, eyes on the track below.

Sophie's own two children were not with her in Glasgow, leaving the ten-year-old princess as the youngest royal in the box. The pair have been photographed together at public events since Charlotte was small, with Sophie often walking alongside her as a guide through the formalities of royal appearances.

The bond is not new to the Commonwealth Games. At the 2022 Games in Birmingham, a seven-year-old Charlotte pulled a funny face as Sophie turned around to greet her at the swimming, while Prince Edward gave his great-niece an enthusiastic wave as she sat beside her mother.

In Glasgow, Charlotte watched netball and judo, and met the Games' mascot — a unicorn named Finnie — giving him a high-five. She wore a polka-dot dress; Sophie chose a patterned white shirt and denim skirt for the day.

For Catherine, the SportsAid connection added a working thread to a family outing. The charity helps fund emerging British athletes at the critical early stage of their careers, before lottery funding or professional contracts kick in. Meeting those athletes in Glasgow carried that patronage from the reception rooms of Kensington Palace to the trackside where the results happen.

What gave the day its texture was the ordinariness of it: a great-aunt hugging a child in a crowd, a girl more interested in the racing than the cameras. The Commonwealth Games, contested between nations of the former British Empire and now the broader Commonwealth, have long drawn royal attendance. The charm of Glasgow's penultimate afternoon was that the youngest royal there looked like she simply wanted to watch.