The British monarchy is feeling pretty bruised and battered at the moment, given the Prince Andrew situation and the rather meaningless move to “strip” Andrew of his HRH and patronages. The Windsors will react by changing the subject in two ways: one, they’ll obviously find some way to bash the Duke and Duchess of Sussex; and two, they’ve got to force Prince William and Kate to “step up” and really become the face of the modern monarchy. Royal reporters would love nothing more than to focus more attention on William and Kate. The problem? For all of that embiggening and PR, the Cambridges still don’t want to actually DO anything. All they do is sit around and talk about how they’re “carrying the burden of the crown” and “trying to make the crown relevant.” What’s even worse is when they leave William out of the equation entirely and just make everything about Kate. LOL. So, here we go:
Kate, the savior of the monarchy: Royal insiders say the monarchy is counting on one person to save the family’s reputation amidst an ongoing sea of scandal: future queen Kate Middleton. “As the Prince Andrew scandal shows, the monarchy is in desperate need of reassuringly conventional royal performers,” Patrick Jephson, the former chief of staff for Kate’s mother-in-law Princess Diana, told The Post exclusively. “Catherine is just what these troubled royal times need — it’s no exaggeration that the Windsors’ future lies in her hands.”
On Kate’s birthday portraits, where she wore Diana’s earrings: “It’s a very calculated decision by Kate and William to keep including Diana in anything that is about setting out a new royal chapter,” Bethan Holt, fashion director of the UK Daily Telegraph, told The Post. “It’s very clever of Kate to keep her memory alive.”
Kate, master of the long game: “Monarchy is the ultimate long game … because unlike business, politics or media stardom, royalty is for life and its time horizons are infinite,” said Jephson. “Catherine has mastered that long game and that’s a very significant achievement.”
The Cambridges are more popular than Charles & Camilla: “Charles and Camilla don’t seem to have the global pull and there seems to be this absolute campaign to make William and Kate the family’s global stars,” said Holt, the author of “The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style.” “There seems to be a whole royal family operation to elevate the Cambridges.”
The monarchy’s last cards: One highly placed palace source added: “If Charles and Diana had made a go of it we wouldn’t be talking like this. Because Charles and Camilla put their own needs and happiness first [having an affair that helped lead to the end of Charles and Diana’s marriage], we are in a continuing constitutional bind that means that William and Kate are the Windsors’ last cards.”
There’s an explicit goal of highlighting the differences between Kate & Meghan: “When Kate came in, she said, ‘I’m going to learn the ropes.’ Meghan said, ‘I’m going to hit the ground running,’” said the palace source. “Learning the ropes is a lifetime job; hitting the ground running is not the royal style, and for good reason. You have to know who you’re running to — and who’s alongside you.”
Kate has a small team: One source who knows the Middleton family revealed: “Kate has a tiny team surrounding her day to day. She’s not part of the royal circus — for her, less is more.”
Who else helps Kate: “The Queen would be very ready to give specific advice possibly because the organization has worked out that you can’t just leave people to work it out for themselves,” said the palace source. “In many ways, I’m sure William is [involved,” added Jephson. “It helps that Catherine, like Diana, has that indefinable but essential royal quality: presence. She has the bearing, the gravitas, the regal factor that already sets her apart from other royal women as a future queen.”
The end of Country Kate? “There’s no getting away from it, the Cambridges have had their [country estate] child-rearing years — now the real royal business begins. She has absolutely created a moment for herself and it’s been done very deliberately.”
On the royal birthday portraits: “Royalty is symbolism and theater — constitutionally, that’s its function,” Jephson said. “And [an official portrait] has to work at first glance — and at the millionth glance.” One thing to note, said Holt, is that Kate is not wearing a tiara nor a royal sash in the photos: “She’s still saving something for later.”
Again, it’s worth pointing out that nothing is happening in lockstep, that there are a lot of competing factors when it comes to Kate specifically. One, while Kate enjoys being embiggened, she is not interested in putting in the work. Two, the royal press and probably old-school monarchists are the main people desperate for Kate to take the spotlight and assume a bigger role (but again, she’s too lazy). Three, Kate is getting pushback constantly from within the institution: her husband, father-in-law and grandmother-in-law do not want Kate to be the center of the attention. So all of this is just another promise to be keen, a promise to eventually be future-queen-y at some point. And again, at the tailend of her birthday extravaganza, Kensington Palace briefed reporters that Kate isn’t actually going to do anything different for the next fifteen years.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instar.
