Thank you to Dora for asking the question “Why were children set up in separate households?” Historian and author Gareth Russell, who has done extensive research on royal households, is answering this question…

The reasons for royal and aristocratic children being sent to their own establishments at very young ages were a mixture of pragmatism and tradition.

It’s worth noting that many foreigner visitors to England did think it was odd that aristocratic children were habitually sent to other households to finish their education. In England, there was a school of thought that held parents would spoil their own children because they naturally loved them too much and that this would, literally, spoil the child’s education. So, a host family was sometimes considered better for the child’s long-term development and education. It also offered families, and the child, to establish a network of connections at an early age which would help them later in life.