When a smooth-shaven Prince William was photographed going to church in Scotland last month just days after appearing in an Olympics congratulation video with a beard, it looked like a case of heir today, gone tomorrow. But now, it seems, William’s beard is here to stay after the hirsute prince was spotted at London’s Saatchi Gallery to support a homeless charity. The engagement marked his first royal duty of the season following a summer break. When William appeared with a beard in a short clip to mark the closing of the Olympics, a friend described it the Daily Beast as a “new installment of the beard wars”—referring to an alleged argument about Harry’s beard that fed into the collapse of his relationship with William.
