This is the inside story of when the Middletons met the monarchy. When suburbia met the royal firm, told by palace insiders. I was on duty. There was a girl standing on her own. This lady was Kate Middleton. Happy birthday, Kate. And family friends. There was intense press pressure. Some of the tabloids had come in and said, “Is it true Carole drove through the village at 50 miles an hour?” Middle-class commoners thrust into the heart of the royal family.
You’re not filming this, are you? What really happened behind closed doors when the party planners went to the palace? I’d heard that Camilla wasn’t very keen on Catherine. Navigating the frictions within the royal family itself. I suppose there is a little tension sometimes between who gets to see the grandkids most.
You know what? I’m jealous. How about me? Does he look like you or Catherine? He’s got her looks, thankfully. How did the Middletons adapt when they met the House of Windsor? She has realized that she is going to have to listen to those that have come before her in order to win, and she gets it. And how will they help shape the future of the royal family? It will be the Middletons who have the influence because the royal family is stuck in its ways.
One day, Prince George will be King George VII, descended from a family of miners. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are one of the most famous couples on the planet. Despite their very different family backgrounds, Kate started dating William while studying art history at the University of St. Andrews.
Little did she know this relationship would change her family’s life forever. They are incredibly popular as members of the royal family on whom an awful lot of responsibility has been placed. As a commoner born into a middle-class Home Counties English family, Kate’s integration into the royal family hasn’t been easy.
They started dating but very quietly. No one knew very much about it, only their closest circle of friends. There’s talk that when Prince Charles was younger that his girlfriends used to call him sir. I would kind of imagine that William that that would be anything like that. Here we have the monarchy.
It has its own peculiar rules and protocol which stretch back hundreds of years. Now, can you imagine stepping into that world and trying to integrate yourself? That is a very steep learning curve. When Kate’s parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, were invited to an intimate lunch to meet the Queen for the first time, all eyes were on Windsor Castle.
It must have been quite awesome to be going through those doors of the ancient medieval castle, these huge buildings that you know are steeped in history where terribly important people live. It was a personal invite from the monarch and a momentous moment for the Middletons. People act really weird sometimes when they’re meeting the Queen.
Their hands get fidgety or they start sweating or start mumbling. In meeting the monarch, the Middletons needed to navigate the royal rules very carefully. Grant Harold spent 7 years as a butler in the royal household. One of my jobs was when people came to meet the royals was to make sure that they were um relaxed, calm.
Um if they wanted any advice or guidance. And that’s everything from uh the gentlemen do a neck bow, not a waist bow, and ladies do a curtsy, not too low down because otherwise you might not come back up. I can just imagine Carol going through her wardrobe and trying to choose the perfect gown. I would say that always er on the side of grace and elegance.
Preferably a long-sleeve. For a gentleman, not too many stripes, not too much fuss. The purpose of the meeting was really to put them at their ease, but it must be quite an intimidating moment for Carole Middleton, whose great-great-grandfather had been a a coal miner in Durham. Carole apparently said, “Please to meet you.
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” when she’d been told to say, “How do you do?” In the tension of the moment, you forget. I’m told that the lunch at Windsor Castle went very well. It went on for an hour and a half, which is quite long, actually, by by Queen standards. John Haley has known the Middletons for over 20 years. They struck up a friendship when the family became regulars at his pub, not far from their home in the Berkshire village of Bucklebury.
We socialized with them, were invited to their house, which was very nice. Mike and Carole got strong personalities. They can get on with anybody. They’re so natural, so relaxed, very family-orientated. They just were liked by everybody. Historically, the in-laws have pretty much become outlaws, but I think Kate made it very clear to William she wasn’t going to lose that close connection that she enjoyed with her own family.
They’re so isolated from ordinary family life. So, there’s an enormous gulf. We’ve seen in the past with with people joining the royal family, it can be devastating. The backgrounds of Carole and Michael Middleton are worlds apart from the Windsors. Carole was brought up in the early part of her life in in a council flat in a an impecunious part of West London.
You don’t have to go back too far in the generations and you reach the Durham connection. For many generations, her family were coal miners. There’ve been lots of reports about Carole’s very humble upbringings. She was kind of a a grafter who moved up the ranks and became a flight attendant at British Airways.
Michael comes from rather slightly grander stock. His family hail from Yorkshire and they had made a fair bit of money. He became flight dispatcher for British Airways and do you know what? They ran into one another and love blossomed. The Middletons moved to Bucklebury in 1995. Kate and her younger siblings, Pippa and James, enjoyed an idyllic childhood.
Bucklebury is a very quaint little village as you imagine in an Agatha Christie story. There’s a village green, a a little butcher’s, a news agent, little local pub. Bucklebury is quite a mixture of people. You got some fabulously wealthy people, lovely big houses. They’re very close-knit community and they all stand by each other.
The Middleton family are incredibly close. Pippa Middleton is Kate’s best friend. They were brought up together. There’s only a year or two gap between them. Kate, Pippa and James were were brought up impeccably. Kate is very similar to her father. She is more thoughtful and more discreet perhaps than Pippa and and quieter.
Personally, I think that that Pippa is is more like her mother. She’s she’s very outgoing, very sociable, loves partying. Mike and Carole, they’re strong people, very loyal, down-to-earth, hard-working couple. The kids would come in and play in the garden, just like any other family. Carole set up her her Party Pieces enterprise on the kitchen table.
Michael then came into the business with her, and they turned it into a a very successful party paraphernalia business. They’re very ambitious. Carole has been said to be a perfectionist, but it certainly paid off for the Middleton family. A wealth of opportunities opened up for the Middleton children, and all three were privately educated.
At the age of 14, Kate was sent to the prestigious Marlborough College, where fees can hit almost £40,000 a year. Carole was determined that they would go to very good private schools. She wanted her daughters to make the sort of connections with the right sort of people. Pippa followed Kate to Marlborough College.
The two of them were very competitive with one another. I think if anything, Pippa became the better sportswoman. She went to Edinburgh, and where she read English. At St. Andrews University, Kate and William kept their burgeoning relationship very quiet. The press were sniffing around and saying, “Is there something going on here?” But they would always say, “No, no, we’re just old housemates, you know how it is at university.
You get loads of students.” And the rest of the Middletons treated the news with the utmost discretion. I’ve interviewed several members of the family over the years, and when William and Kate began dating, Carole actually phoned members of the family to to tell them to be on their guard.
I mean, they must have been dying to tell people, “Do you know, our daughter is dating Prince William.” But I think they kept it a very tight circle. As William and Kate’s relationship blossomed, William visited the Middleton family home in Bucklebury. I think that the people that would say, “Well, you take us as as we are.
This is our house, our home, and you’re invited into it.” But, I don’t think they would necessarily then think they’ve got to put on a show. William and Carole struck a very close bond very early on. He would definitely have been happy to have a mother figure like Carole, who’s very nurturing and reliable and trustworthy.
The Bucklebury locals made William feel very much at home. And the very first time when Prince William came in, the first thing he was looking for was a mint beer and a bitter. Uh so, we then made sure that we always kept it in stock. And the family made a visit to the local pub. Two tables were booked this particular evening by Carole.
The second table was for his security. Kate walked straight in and said, “Hi, John. How are you?” I said, “I’m fine, thank you.” She said, “Oh, this is William. William, John.” And shook hands, “Nice to meet you.” And it was just so relaxed. They were in the conservatory having a meal, and the press came in the front, but they didn’t even know they were there.
A world away from the village of Bucklebury, however, William was planning the introduction of Kate to his family and, importantly, his father. When Catherine was taken to Highgrove, she would have been prepped by William. Charles and Catherine went for a a walk in the garden on their own for a chat.
They got on well, but Charles is, someone slightly unkindly put it, is a dry old stick. I think William would have said, “Look, he’s he’s a lovely man, but you know, he’s not the life and soul.” I think that he would have admired the fact that Catherine was quite a mature, well-spoken, and quite a confident girl, actually. Charles really made a point of welcoming Kate into the family from quite an early stage.
She was often invited for shooting weekends up at Birkhall. It’s Charles who largely taught Kate to stalk. Most of the royal family are quite like playing games. They play quite silly games sometimes after dinner. I think she would have found plenty to enjoy with them. She was taken to Highgrove to Sandringham.
She was taken into these scenarios to judge whether or not she was suited to it, whether she could handle it, whether she hated it. There were so many lessons of Princess Diana because no one wanted another bride who was miserable. I’d heard that Camilla wasn’t very keen on Catherine. She didn’t shoot. She’s not interested in horses, particularly.
There was too much of a gap and that William would feel it. But I think it’s true to say Camilla later warmed to Catherine and recognized her solid virtues. Harry took some winning over. I think sometimes he felt that Kate was a bit straight and kept his brother a bit too much on the straight and narrow.
And I do remember Harry telling one of their friends, “Oh, he’s become so boring.” But actually, he grew to love Kate and to see her as the sister really that he’s never had. Catherine Middleton After graduating from St. Andrews University with a 2:1, Kate moved to her parents’ flat in London. But she was soon hit with the harsh reality of being the girlfriend of the future monarch, catapulted into the center of a media frenzy.
Suddenly, overnight, everybody wants a piece of you. Now, psychologically, that can have a hugely stressful impact. In fact, some people who become famous overnight describe it as being very traumatizing. She’d be surrounded by news crews, 20 cameramen. It’s pretty tough, but she didn’t complain about it publicly.
Kate was advised to watch film of how Diana dealt with the press. That might have been the salutary lesson for Catherine. You’ve got to accept that early on, you’re not going to like it. The Middletons are now thrown firmly into the spotlight. If you come from a very tight, close family unit, suddenly exposing all the rest of the members to becoming, you know, public fodder can be immensely painful.
Some of the tabloids had come in and said, “Is it true Carole drives through the village at 50 miles an hour?” Well, you know, it’s totally untrue. Michael and Carole got strong personalities, so they was able to deal with this. I noticed the odd time they bumped into a reporter in the pub, they would just say, “I’m sorry, we don’t talk to the press.
” Carole and Michael were invited to William’s passing out ceremony at Sandhurst. Carole got some very unfair criticism for chewing gum in public. In fact, it was Nicorette because she’d given up smoking. I’m sure Carole must have been mortified by the headlines. She got a lot of flack for it.
It’s got to be quite humiliating. She bore it with good grace. She didn’t say anything about it. When William and Kate split for a period in 2007, the Middleton family were faced with negative headlines. William made the call and said that I think it’s the right person at the wrong time type of call. What was quite difficult was that he was not only splitting from Catherine, he was splitting from her family and he’d become very close to them.
Carole Middleton in particular was a target of the tabloid press. Snide remarks she was too pushy. Rumors that Carole and Catherine had a plan to almost ambush William and St. Andrews. None of these have been proved to be true. She had to take some stick over her mom being an air stewardess, you know, crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s to manual was said a few times, I think.
This is a woman that built a very, very successful business, so I don’t think she really gave two hoops about it from what I understand. William was very upset and he telephoned the Middletons very quickly to say that the criticisms had not come from him or any of the royals. You could say they were almost royal in the way they dealt with all the press attention, actually.
They’re quite savvy, the Middletons. They just put up and shut up and that was a very sound strategy. On nights out in London, newly single Kate was seen to be sporting an adventurous style. It was Carole who said to Kate, “You go and show him what he’s missing.” Carole knew that her daughter was perfect future queen material.
If this was indeed a plan cooked up by Carole Middleton, it certainly worked. Around 10 weeks later, the relationship was back on. I was so excited that they were actually back together. One of my favorite memories was Prince Charles’ birthday. There was a girl standing on her own, but nobody was speaking to her.
This lady was Kate Middleton. I felt sorry, so I walked over to her and started chatting to her. The fact they’d just got back together and they might have been in that back thing where people didn’t really know what what they were going to say. Despite the press intrusion, William and Kate’s relationship was seemingly stronger than ever.
Kate was finally introduced to the most revered royal relative of them all, the Queen. In 2008, Kate attended the wedding of Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. William wasn’t able to go to that wedding. For Catherine to attend on her own was really quite significant. I can only imagine it would have been a roller coaster of emotions and a desperate need to want to get it right and also to impress the Queen, the monarch, but also this is her boyfriend’s grandma.
But it was a private moment when Kate finally met the head of the House of Windsor. It would have been carefully choreographed by royal advisers. She would have been told, you know, just to wait for the Queen and the Queen would have had someone there to point out Catherine. At the reception, the Queen came over and spoke to Catherine and reportedly, you know, they had a little chat.
It was very pleasant and the Queen let it be known that she’d been wanting to meet Catherine for a long time. I’m sure that the Queen and Kate found loads to talk about. Kate studied history of art at university and the Queen obviously has an extensive collection of fine paintings and and they both adore the countryside.
You see, the thing about Kate she just has this ability. I think it’s partly being confident, being very smiley, but crucially not being embarrassed about who she is. The Queen would have warmed to that. Despite establishing her place within the Windsor inner circles, 2 years later there was still no sign of an engagement ring.
It’s rumored Carole Middleton took the delicate matter of her daughter’s future into her own hands. She sat down with William and just said to him, “Is this going to end in a marriage?” She was close enough to be able to do that. William gave his assurance that, you know, he was going to make an honest woman of Kate.
He wasn’t going to leave her on the shelf. True to his word, in October 2010, William finally asked Kate to marry him. They met at university. They will one day be king and queen. And when the newly engaged couple appeared in their first joint TV interview, Kate’s family were at the forefront of William’s mind. Mike and Carole have have only to been, you know, really sort of loving and caring and really fun.
Um and I’ve been really welcoming towards me. So, I felt really part of the family. For William, what I notice when he talks about the Middleton family, he goes from clasped hands to open palms and gets very animated. He’s telling you, “I feel very positively about these people.
” I really didn’t expect it at all. I thought he might have sort of maybe thought about it, but no. It was a total shock when it came and very exciting. The excitement about the royal engagement swept the world and nowhere more so than the Middleton’s home village of Bucklebury. The evening after, there was a massive party. They all come in the pub.
I remember Mike got up and gave a speech and thanked everyone and all his friends and, you know, being good with the family and we all, you know, really celebrated the news. In a move breaking with royal precedent, the Middleton’s held a press conference outside the family home. It doesn’t look too cheesy, does it? No, you sure? You’re not filming this, are you? Michael and Carol came out looking um to their credit I think not dressed up to the nines looking very relaxed quite informal and I think everyone took to
them then and thought oh they’re they’re quite ordinary folk good for them. They were naturals actually in front of the camera. They make a lovely couple. They’re great fun to be with and we’ve had a lot of laughs together. It was so natural for Mike to be able to give this speech and speak to the press from all over the world.
I remember congratulating Mike when I saw him next a few days later. Was it all right? Didn’t need to retake? The Middletons are actually the ultimate professionals when it comes to being public figures handling it with confidence and with poise and just getting that note right. A sweet interview Carol as she disappeared into the distance she flicked her hair back and went crumbs.
Goodness you know as if how extraordinary to be in such a an amazing position. Just a month after getting engaged William and Kate announced the date of their wedding as the 29th of April 2011. We saw William and Kate after the announcement of the engagement and I said congratulations it’s great news and and I’m sure you’ll have a fabulous life together.
I think what people might be surprised to learn is that actually until that engagement was official Kate really had no training whatsoever. William had his private office William had the palace machine behind him. Clearly everything changed once they became engaged because everything is sort of scaled up to another level from then on she had a full-time police protection which made a huge difference in terms of keeping the paparazzi at bay and of course she had to start beginning to plan on on on what life within the royal family was going to be
like. The Queen certainly played a role in preparing Catherine to marry William, but not in any sort of formal sense. She would have just just given her odd bits of advice just to encourage her. The reality is the Queen lets members of the royal family find their own way. And that’s the way she did it.
There wouldn’t be some sort of, you know, blackboard up, this is how you become a royal wife. Catherine will have been given advice and some gentle tutoring by courtiers within the the royal household. It was all done internally, sort of clothes to wear for for what occasion, and how to interact with with the public.
It wasn’t only Kate that was prepared for life in the royal family. The Middletons themselves were also now to be at the heart of the monarchy. For the royal family, they’ve been born and raised into it. They know the rules of engagement at big events like a royal wedding. For the Middleton family, I think it would only be fair to offer them uh guidance, support, and help about protocol.
Otherwise, the likelihood for making a mistake is pretty high. The Middleton family would have been given some support, particularly mom and dad. So, there’ll be security checks and making sure they’ve got all the correct procedures in place for that. be so proud now to know that he’s in that position. Really. William sat down with them.
He explained to them how things would change. He made sure that he was there for them. Carole had William’s number in her phone, as did Michael, so that they could call him if they needed him. I remember from a butler’s point of view, when I joined, you know, you’re you’re made aware from that day forward your your life is never going to be quite the same.
So, can you imagine when we’re talking about Kate Middleton and her family marrying into the royal family, of course, it is going to change their lives. As Kate and her family adjusted to life in the royal firmament, plans for the wedding took shape. I mean, this was not going to be just some ordinary family wedding because it involved the heir in line to the throne.
It was going to be at one of the grandest churches in the land at Westminster Abbey. And inevitably, it meant that many of the preparations had to be taken out of the Middleton’s hands and put in the hands of the royal household. Weddings cause fights and riffs in the best of families. And so, I’m sure there were some very fraught moments in the planning of William and Kate’s wedding as well.
The Middletons did spend a lot of money themselves, and with that money came control. She was able to express personal taste and judgment. The thing about Catherine that works so well is that she does have her own mind, and she does like to make decisions about what she does and how she appears. But she does it within a framework that’s acceptable to the royal family.
For a few of the Middleton family friends in Bucklebury, it meant an unexpected invite. She said, “Oh, hi John, this is Pippa.” I said, “Oh, what can I do for you?” She said, “Kate’s asked me to phone you and would like to know if you’d like to come to the wedding.” It was just great of Kate to invite couple of dozen friends from the area.
It says something special about Kate because, you know, she didn’t want it just to be a royal wedding. She wanted her family there, her friends there. And there was one member of the Middleton family in particular who had captured the press and public’s imagination. No one really knew who Pippa Middleton was, but my goodness, if you didn’t know who she was before the royal wedding, you certainly knew who she was afterwards.
I think that that dress certainly propelled her into the public domain with many people discussing her look and her shape and so on. It had a series of beautiful little satin buttons down the back, all the way down the back, and really rather a demure but undeniably sexy way. Um and it was Pippa’s rear which caught the the attention of the media almost more than the royal bride.
These two families from very different worlds came together publicly for the first time as they stepped onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Well, for William I would have thought it was probably something that he was fine with because he’s been doing it since he was a little kid, but I can imagine for Kate wondering out on the balcony and then you see this huge swathe of people.
It must have looked magnificent. For now, all eyes may have been on Kate and William, but after the wedding, attention quickly turned to Pippa once again. She had become her royal hotness. And there was a brief spell when everything Pippa did almost eclipsed what her sister was doing. Um I think Pippa found that quite hard.
I I I’ve met her once or twice and um you know, she didn’t seek this publicity and she had no idea uh quite what it was going to do to her. Pippa wasn’t alone. For the entire Middleton family, their sudden elevation into the aristocracy brought with it a unique set of problems, not least that they still had to earn a living.
The Middletons didn’t seek the spotlight, but by their circumstance, and of course who they were, and who their daughter had married into, they were the subject of intense scrutiny. And unsurprisingly, you know, their business was something that the press really poured over. Carole set up the family business, a mail-order party supplies company called Party Pieces, in 1987.
Whenever a new line came on the Party Pieces website, um people would be looking to see if that was slightly going to infringe um uh royal protocol. Uh are they exploiting the royal connections by choosing things uh to sell It wasn’t bad publicity for their company, but that’s not their fault. They didn’t choose their daughter’s uh husband. They’re a hard-working family.
They built up a very, very good business, and the press were being very unfair to them. After her starring role in the wedding, Pippa Middleton was a particular source of fascination to the press and public, and potentially a flashpoint with the royals. She, like Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer, came under the spotlight quite a lot.
You know, who she was dating, uh how she was making her money, um etc. And yeah, she became hot property. Put it away. She really was one of the most sought-after socialites on on the London party circuit. I mean, I remember being at events, um and Pippa turned up, the photographers would go crazy.
But with the eyes of the world and the royals upon her, she began to feel the pressure. Once she was famous, one of the most famous people in the world, there were bound to be accusations that she was using her position as the sister of, you know, the future queen of England to further her commercial interests.
It was even alleged that Pippa was using her position in the royal orbit to her advantage. Whether that was getting a deal with Waitrose, writing a party planning book, being on the top of the guest list for some of the biggest parties in London. Pippa Middleton has had an interesting journey.
You know, we had the book on entertaining that was written. Although the advance was huge paid to to Pippa and contained such fascinating insights such as if you’re going to host a stargazing party, it’s best to do it at night. I think it did get to the point, um, particularly for Pippa, um, where she was she was advised just to keep a a lower profile.
I think it did get to the point certainly where at the palace there was a level of concern about just how much exposure Pippa was getting. And I think that at that point a word was had, um, you know, from Kate to her sister just to, you know, just to say, “Look, it’s in it’s in your best interest to just dial this down a little bit.
” The youngest member of the Middleton family, James, wasn’t immune to criticism, either. James was a very young man at the time his sister married. But of course, you know, he had a lot of growing up to do. There were some nude pictures that emerged of James Middleton taken years before but splashed across some of the papers.
It must be very hard when you’re just a private person going about your own life to find your past dragged up and your bins gone through and cameras trained on you when you least expected. It was around James’s business dealings that the scrutiny became most intense and potentially damaging to the family’s new royal connection.
Of course, they’re not royal, but they’re still somehow connected. So, for Pippa and James, every attempt they made to support themselves, to start a business, to write a book, to whatever it was, was going to be criticized heavily and scrutinized. So, there were privileges and perks of being associated with the royals, but there was also a lot of pressure and scrutiny and and negative headlines.
James is slightly younger, a few years younger than his sisters, and has has been somewhat overshadowed by them, I think. But, he is very close to them. Very much a chip off the Middleton family block. He went to the the same school as his sisters, and he went to Edinburgh University. He did not, however, complete his degree course, and he he dropped out.
From a very early age, he wasn’t particularly looking to go and make a career as a solicitor or something like that. He was he was looking to set up and run something himself. James is is probably most like Carole. He’s very much an entrepreneur. It seemed that he was quite determined to follow in his entrepreneurial parents’ footsteps and make something of his life.
He started up several businesses. One went bust, owing a great deal of money. So, he was he was criticized for that. Despite their rapid rise to royal circles, the Middletons held firm to the monarchy’s mantra, never complain, never explain. I think the Middletons have been exemplary, actually, in how they’ve conducted themselves since becoming part of the extended royal family, if you like.
They have maintained absolutely the first rule, almost the only rule, which is to be discreet. They’ve just been in the background, supporting William, supporting Catherine. I think they’ve fitted in quietly and calmly and handled it all with um immense aplomb. Upon her wedding to Prince William in April 2011, Kate was no longer a Middleton.
Catherine, her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, was now a Windsor, married into one of the most famous institutions in the world. The amount of scrutiny that she felt beforehand was nothing compared to the amount of scrutiny that she would face the rest of her life. A true baptism of fire for any royal is their first overseas engagement.
And for Kate, just 2 months after her wedding to Prince William, she faced a daunting 9-day tour of Canada. They don’t get much sleep when they’re doing those tours, but at the same time they’re they’re really important that they do them. I went to say to the prince of Wales, “I hope you enjoy your vacation.
” And he’s like, “It’s not a vacation. It’s a tour.” With over 1,300 journalists following Kate’s every move, the eyes of the world were watching this new royal. There was an extraordinary amount of pressure, and it was details like wearing something reflective of when Princess Diana was there or wearing a brooch that the Queen herself wore when she was in Canada.
Please welcome the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Despite wowing crowds overseas, back on home soil Kate faced more pressure as she struggled to hone her royal skill set. None of us really love public speaking, and it is for for a member of the royal family a key part of the job description. Now, Catherine’s first speech in public is slightly painful to watch because it’s not terrible, but it’s not great.
First of all, I’d like to say thank you. Thank you for not only accepting me as your patron, but thank you also for inviting me here today. You can see that she was incredibly nervous. There’s zero personality, but to be perfectly honest, for a royal speech, you’re not massively meant to put personality in, but you can put it a little bit more than what Catherine gave it.
It is a shining example of the support and the care that is delivered not just here, but in the children’s hospice movement at large, up and down the country. The first chapter of Kate’s life as a Windsor had started with a whirlwind. And Kate was now faced with her first official royal Christmas at Sandringham.
What to give someone for Christmas is always a nightmare, isn’t it? And what do you give the Queen? Catherine absolutely hit the nail on the head when she decided to give the Queen some homemade chutney, and I think the Queen would have absolutely loved that. And then she showed her sense of humor and her great relationship with Harry by giving him a grow-your-own girlfriend kit.
And they would have loved that. Kate had come a long way from her days as a student at St. Andrews University. But had her meteoric rise affected the relationships within the monarchy? You can’t please everybody when you enter a new family. Now, if you think about Kate’s position, she has been elevated in the pecking order of royalty, and she’s now above Beatrice and Eugenie.
Less than a year after Kate married into the royal family, rumors of tensions within the palace began to gather momentum as Prince Charles looked to streamline the It’s tricky for Beatrice and Eugenie, both born true royal princesses, to be bumped down the pecking order. Catherine was the scapegoat.
She was the person who came in because she takes a senior position, has an effect on the rest of the family. A striking image from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee showed a new look monarchy with a former Middleton just a year into her royal marriage at its front and center. It looks more modern. It looks more considered.
But of course it it within the family it does cause these these problems. From humble beginnings, Kate was now at the forefront of a modern monarchy. But it would be another new addition to the firm that would set in motion one of the family’s biggest fallouts. Do you ever have disagreements about things? Oh, yes.
Healthy healthy disagreements. Okay. The last thing you disagreed on, how’d you resolve it? Uh I can’t remember. They come so thick and fast. When Meghan joined the royal family, everyone assumed that she and Kate would become best buddies because they were both outsiders.
But of course they are naturally very different women. Kate in many ways was sort of collateral damage in all this and she and Meghan didn’t particularly get along. The relationship was not as straightforward as as the wider world thought. Despite the simmering tensions, the Middleton and Windsor bloodlines became inextricably linked on the 22nd of July, 2013, when Prince George was born at St.
Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. Who does he look like? Does he look like you or Catherine? He’s got her looks, thankfully. George was born and it was special and everyone’s coming in saying, “Wow, we got the firstborn a boy and he’s going to be a future king.” And Carole is his grandma and Michael, of course, is granddad. He’s absolutely beautiful.
They’re both doing really well and we’re so thrilled. Kate and William came to visit the Middletons. I was invited round for a glass of wine and we met and that was that was a special time. I’m not good with babies, really, but it was good to be able to meet the future king. And within 5 years, Kate and William’s brood had grown with the arrival of Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
One future king and his two younger siblings. But who will have the greatest say in their future? Hi, guys. I suspect everyone thinks that in terms of the children, the royal family will inevitably have the most influence. But that’s entirely wrong. It will be the Middletons who have the influence because the royal family is too formal, it’s too stuck in its ways.
I think there’s going to be a modification of the royal upbringing, which is in part just because we’re living in different days, but also because Kate had a very sensible upper middle class upbringing. And she’ll want her boys to experience some of that. Regardless of his upbringing, Prince George, along with siblings Charlotte and Louis, will have an undeniable date with destiny.
One day, Prince George will be King George the VII. And it’s amazing to think that he is descended from a family of miners in County Durham. Since their introduction to the royal firm almost 20 years ago, the Middleton family have succeeded where many others have fallen short. The village is very proud of Kate.
Mike and Carole have conducted themselves so well considering the pressure they had on them. Not many people could have done that. To integrate with the royal family the way they have, I think they’ve done an absolutely great job. I think one of the Middleton’s great strengths is they’re very close family and they support one another and they can talk to one another.
They just quietly get on with their lives and that’s exactly what you need to do when you’re associated with royalty. Don’t draw attention to yourselves. You couldn’t have picked a more perfect family to marry into the royals than the Middletons.
