When he was a young boy, Princess Diana is said to have told her eldest son that when he married, it should be for love. On April 29, 2011, Prince William followed through. Marrying Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey, where one day they will be crowned king and queen, William helped to create a day of national celebration, and a milestone in recent British history—Kate was the first commoner to marry an heir to the British throne in three centuries.
A decade into her life as a duchess, Kate—once dismissed by the press as “Waity Katy”—is now part of the royal-family bedrock. Even in the turbulent past year that has seen the rift between William and Harry and the death of family patriarch Prince Philip, Kate has been a steadying and reliable force—just look at her subtle effort to get William and Harry walking together after Philip’s funeral. As pandemic restrictions end and the royal family adjusts to their pared-down new normal, Kate will remain one of the most visible and best-loved working royals—and an essential representative of the monarchy’s future.
Millions of people watched the moment when, outside of Westminster Abbey on that April day, Kate stepped out of the royal family’s Rolls-Royce Phantom VI in her Alexander McQueen gown. With long lace sleeves and a V-shaped neckline, the gown, which Kate designed alongside McQueen creative director Sarah Burton, would set a decade’s worth of wedding-dress trends. Her sister, Pippa, elegant in a stunning white McQueen gown of her own, smoothed the nine-foot-long train, while their father, Michael Middleton, took his daughter tenderly by the arm to prepare her for the long walk up the aisle. It must have been a moment of heart-stopping nerves for them both, but father and daughter were composed and collected.
Inside, the Abbey was scented with the bride’s favorite Jo Malone candles, and dressed with trees at the couple’s request. Their friends from St. Andrews and the London social scene mingled alongside foreign royals and heads of state, the Beckhams and Elton John, and more than 1,800 others. Thousands more waited outside as the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were escorted to Buckingham Palace in an open-top State Landau horse-drawn coach. Stepping out onto the palace balcony to greet the crowds, Kate gasped, “Wow,” as she took in the scene.
“There was a great sense of excitement around the day and a feeling that this marked the start of a new beginning for the monarchy,” said a former senior palace courtier, who was involved in planning the wedding. “This was a couple clearly very happy and very much in love.”
In choosing a “normal” girl from the home counties who comes from a close-knit and loving family, and having enjoyed the privilege of one of the most ordinary of royal courtships during their time together at St. Andrews, William was dusting the institution of years of tradition. “Historically royal princes married to cement an alliance with a foreign power but William’s marriage to Kate Middleton was different,” says royal historian and author Sarah Gristwood. “Kate was a commoner and thus cemented an affiliation with the British people, which has done the monarchy a lot of good. The royal family must be watching and learning. This middle-class girl from Berkshire has actually managed a seamless and fairly flawless move into the royal family. She’s endeared herself to the family and the public by being the old style of royal, she’s now modifying the pitch.”
The eldest daughter of self-made millionaires Michael and Carole Middleton, whose roots stretch back to a family of coal miners in northern England, Kate has fit seamlessly into the royal family, even as her more ordinary roots help her remain relatable and real to the public. As noted by veteran photographer Arthur Edwards who has photographed the royal family for over 40 years, even her and William’s lengthy courtship ended up working in their favor.
“I asked William why he waited for so long to make it official and he told me he wanted to be sure,” Edwards recalls. “He made a brilliant choice in Catherine. She is completely her own person and she supports William tremendously. I never thought we’d have anyone like Diana ever again, but now we do. I think most people in this country think one day she’ll make a great queen.”
According to a former courtier who knows Kate well, her family values, loyalty, and discretion have also prepared her well for royal life. “There were many times from the engagement onwards when she would come to Buckingham Palace to speak with ladies in waiting, private secretaries, and those who work closely with the queen so that she could learn about her future role,” the source says. “She wanted to know what it was like to go to a state banquet, how to conduct herself on a walkabout, and what would be expected of her on a regional tour so that she could get it right. There was a real willingness from everyone at the royal household to help her make it work.”
One year after the royal wedding, it was already possible to see that work paying off. Queen Elizabeth invited Kate to join her and Prince Philip on a visit to Leicester in March of 2021, traveling by royal train as part of the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee tour. Kate and the queen were photographed laughing together while sitting down to watch a student fashion show, and people in the crowd spoke breathlessly to the press about their encounters with the duchess. One onlooker asked Kate about William, who was stationed in the Falklands at the time. The duchess responded that she was “missing him terribly,” but also added, “I’m being well looked after.”
The years that followed Kate and William’s wedding were some of the happiest for the royal family and compared to the turbulence of recent months, fairly placid ones. After sending them to Canada and America for their first overseas tour months after their wedding, the queen gave the Cambridges her blessing for them to spend the first years of their marriage out of the spotlight. Much as the queen and Prince Philip did in the early years of their marriage, Kate and WIlliam were able to live a relatively ordinary life on the island of Anglesey, off Wales, where William was working as a search and rescue pilot.
After Prince George was born in 2013, the couple moved to Norfolk so that they could enjoy their time as a new family in the relative peace and quiet of their country bolt-hole, Anmer Hall. It was only after Princess Charlotte was born and Prince George started school in the fall of 2017 that William quit his job with the Air Ambulance service and the family moved back to Kensington Palace to take on their roles as full-time royals supporting the queen. George and Charlotte joined them on tours in Canada, Poland, and Germany, and the Cambridges seemed to be working hard to find a harmonious balance between their private and public lives.
The children, including Prince Louis, born in 2018, represent the fulfillment of Kate’s dynastic obligation to the throne. But motherhood, as one friend of the couple’s observes, has “been the making of Kate.” In an interview last year with Giovanna Fletcher for the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, Kate was remarkably candid about her experiences of motherhood. She spoke about the joys of holding Prince George for the very first time, the terror she felt when she left the hospital holding her precious new baby knowing the world was watching, and how she feels “mom guilt”—“Anyone who doesn’t as a mother is actually lying!”
“She is the future Queen of England, but in that moment we were two mums sitting down and having a chat,” Fletcher says. “She talked about how she has to step away from being a mother to do her royal work and how she feels guilty at times. It was a big thing for her to admit, and it made her seem so normal.”
Despite the pressures of raising three children, however, Kate is equally serious about her role and responsibility as Duchess of Cambridge and future Princess of Wales. It is why, sources close to her say, she has bided her time, carefully choosing the 17 patronages and organizations she supports to reflect her personal interests: young people, particularly the preschool generation; mental health; the importance of nature and sport; and her passion, photography. As one of her team says, “she sees them as a commitment for the rest of her life.”
Aides at Kensington Palace call the duchess’s Early Years work her “legacy project.” In a speech just before Christmas, Kate explained why the campaign is so important to her. “If we only expect people to take an interest in the early years when they have children, we are not only too late for them, we are underestimating the huge role others can play in shaping our most formative years too.”
With the help of a steering group of academics and neurosurgeons who are experts on children’s well-being, Kate has become one of the leading experts in the field. “I think the duchess can be a catalyst for change…she has started a vital conversation,” says David Holmes, who sits on Kate’s steering group and is also chief executive of the charity Family Action, of which Kate is patron.
Like many royals, Kate’s work often involves visits to schools and funny, unpredictable interactions with small children. Getting down to eye level with a toddler is when Kate really comes into her own.
“I’ve seen her in so many situations sit down and get into a conversation,” Holmes says. “There’s a gentleness about her that draws people to her. She has the personal experience of parenting which gives her a greater understanding and sensitivity.”
As it did for nearly every family on earth, the coronavirus pandemic upended Kate and William’s lives, which had already been transformed by major shake-ups within the royal family. Following the scandal that erupted around his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein in the fall of 2019, Prince Andrew was forced to step down from public-facing duties. Months later, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made their seismic exit from the royal family and the U.K. leaving behind their roles as working royals to forge new lives in California amidst a family row which is still overshadowing the royals.
“There was a real risk that when the Sussexes left, the glamour of the royal family would also be taking a transatlantic plane ticket leaving it looking distinctly dowdy,” says Gristwood. “Kate was the person to fill that void, and she did it magnificently.”
In addition to taking on more responsibilities, with fewer senior royals left to carry out the family duties, Kate has tried to play the role of peacemaker between William and Harry. But as one source close to the Cambridges notes, for all the heartache it has caused, Harry and Meghan’s exit has in many ways refocused William and Kate, who are more determined than ever to make a difference through their own philanthropic work through their charitable platform, the Royal Foundation. While Kate is heavily focused on childhood issues and mental well-being, William is focusing his time on conservation and his newly announced Earthshot Prize.
“They are very focused on their roles and how they plan to bring about real, lasting change,” says a palace aide. “The duchess is definitely doing things that are different and outside her comfort zone these days, and that’s because she feels confident doing them. She’s very comfortable in her royal role and her family role. She’s a very hands-on mum. They are a happy family and that has resulted in a quiet confidence about her.”
When the pandemic first took hold last spring, the Cambridges’ popularity soared as they Zoom-called key workers, doctors, and nurses and checked in on teachers and pupils around the country. Their Royal Foundation donated £1.8 million toward mental health charities, and Kate, an avid photographer, partnered with the National Portrait Gallery for the exhibit “Hold Still,” which captured many facets of pandemic life.
Prince George, now seven; Princess Charlotte, five; and Prince Louis, three, also played a major role in their pandemic efforts. Fiercely protective of their three children, the Cambridges have been more willing to allow the public a glimpse into their private lives during the past year, even allowing their children in front of the cameras. George, Charlotte, and Louis were filmed meeting the 94-year-old conservationist David Attenborough as part of William’s environmental efforts. We discovered that George, like his father, worries about extinction, Charlotte loves spiders, while little Louis asked Sir David about his favorite “amimal.”
The Kensington Royal Instagram account shared photographs of the children clapping for the NHS and delivering food parcels, and there was even a memorable “Instagram vs. reality” picture of Louis’s messy painted face to honor his second birthday. In December, the family made an outing to the theater, and William revealed that their home was the same merry chaos as other households muddling through lockdown, the kitchen an explosion of flour and chocolate.
Kate oversaw most of the homeschooling during lockdown and made the most of the extra family time. According to a friend, “Their lives are very busy, their diaries are full, and so the time they actually get with each other is quite limited. Lockdown has been a really special time for them and brought them even closer as a family.” But true to her relatable roots, she has also been frank about the stress involved. During a video call with teachers earlier this year, she admitted she was often “exhausted” after a week of homeschooling.
Just before Christmas the couple asked the queen if they could tour the country to thank key workers and meet members of the public. The queen gave her blessing and told them to use the Royal Train, which is rarely used because of the expense of running it. The trip was not without controversy, with Kate and William traveling to Scotland even with much of the country still closed to nonessential travel. Nonetheless, it was significant that the queen sent the Cambridges as her representatives on what amounted to an ambitious trip in the COVID era. At the end of the tour they reunited with the queen, Charles, and Camilla on the steps outside of Windsor Castle—socially distanced and a smaller family gathering than we’re used to, but a family united all the same.
It’s been evident in the past year, from her remarkable “Hold Still” exhibition to her friendly Instagram videos that Kate has not only discovered a new confidence, she has found her voice—and crucially, is being encouraged to use it. “There is a repositioning going on within the monarchy, and I think this is one of the most important stages in Kate’s life as a royal,” says Gristwood. “She is doing things independently and voicing new ideas. This is Kate’s moment.”
With Meghan Markle’s allegations about how she was silenced within the palace still reverberating in the press, Kate’s visibility as a modern, working mother will become even more important. And following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, the queen will be even more reliant on the family members she calls her “substitutes.” Rumors abound that the queen plans to scale back her public duties (courtiers deny she will retire) and hand more power to Prince Charles, which in turn means more responsibility for William and Kate.
Meanwhile Princess Anne, Prince Edward, and his wife, Sophie, will also support the queen, but there is no doubt that the future rests on William and Kate.
“Kate understands that this is about being part of a team,” according to historian Robert Lacey. “She has this ability to glow and stand out without divisiveness and competition. She radiates support. There’s also a toughness and a core to Kate that is well concealed but people including the queen, recognize.”
Those who have known Kate since her St. Andrews days say she hasn’t changed, and has always been family oriented, hardworking, likeable, and confident. When told she was lucky to be dating the prince by one mutual friend, she famously retorted “he’s lucky to be going out with me.” Now that inner confidence is coming through in Kate’s public work.
“It’s amazing how far she has come,” says Tracy Rennie, acting CEO of the children’s hospice charity EACH, who has known the duchess since she became the charity’s patron in 2012. “When she opened the Treehouse hospice for us it was her very first public speech and she was so nervous her hands were shaking. I’ve seen a huge change in her…she is much more confident.”
On April 29, 2019, Kate and William’s eighth wedding anniversary, the queen publicly rewarded her granddaughter-in-law for her years of loyalty and duty by making her a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, the highest honor available to a female member of the family. Kate now wears a special blue sash at state banquets as a reward for her work supporting the monarchy.
“I’ll bet those courtiers who reputedly once sneered about ‘Waity Katy’ are the very ones bowing lowest now,” Gristwood says. “She looks like the person who’s going to have to play a big hand in the ongoing remolding of the monarchy.”
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