Prince Charles & Duchess Kate used to make secret trips to the opera??

prince-charles-&-duchess-kate-used-to-make-secret-trips-to-the-opera??

Here are more photos of the Duchess of Cambridge out with Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall yesterday. The purpose of the event was to highlight Charles’s Foundation and its work with artists, art students and artisans. Kate has a nominal interest in arts and crafts, so I can understand why she was invited to tag along. Plus, Kate is pretty non-threatening for Camilla. Camilla has been around a long time and I think Cam is pretty good at sizing women up. Camilla isn’t worried about Kate.

I’m sure royal commentators will say this weekend that she hit a perfect note: she didn’t wear a new frock, she wasn’t too showy, she was demure around her in-laws, etc. And I guess that’s true. What’s also true is that… Charles knows she’s a lightweight, but he also knows that she’s basically the only youngish, pretty “working royal” these days. He’s using her to get attention for his sh-t. While Kate might be an idiot, she knows that she’s being used and she seems fine with it. So much so that as I was reading all of the endless “what a rare occurrence, to see Kate alone with her in-laws” stories, I kind of wondered… why hasn’t Charles invited Kate to do events with him before, without William? I would be very curious to know if he had been inviting her to stuff over the years but she said no because she didn’t want to set a dangerous precedent by… working.

As I said, I’m expecting lots of stories this weekend from royal commentators embiggening Charles and Kate’s relationship. Given that Charles was a big fan of Meghan back in the day, perhaps Kate has a vested interested in copykeening that too. “Royal expert” Gertrude Daly told the Daily Star: “I think today’s visit definitely shows that Duchess Kate has a close connection with Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla. And a love of the arts is definitely part of that close connection. I know back in the early days of Kate’s marriage, Prince Charles and Duchess Kate would make a number of secret trips to the opera together.” I’m sorry, what? Charles and Kate were sneaking off to go to operas together?? I looked it up: back in November 2011, the Daily Mail reported that during Kate and William’s engagement, Kate and Charles quietly went to the opera together a few times. Hmmm…

Photos courtesy of Instar, Backgrid.