A few weeks ago, there was a minor kerfuffle that quickly turned into a major royal kerfuffle. Prince William had filled out his newborn son’s birth certificate, and William identified Kate (HRH Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge) as “Princess of the United Kingdom”. Considering that St. James Palace and Buckingham Palace had always insisted that Kate was in fact NOT a princess up until that point, there were a lot of aggravated royal reporters and royal reporters. My explanation seemed to be the reasoning used by the Palace – Kate is a “princess” in the sense that she can adopt William’s title and become Princess William of Wales. At the end of the day, of course it does not matter at all. But now the royal reporters – one in particular – are having some kind of meltdown.
Richard Palmer of The Daily Express has written a column which I think qualifies as a “screed”. You can read the whole epic-ness here. His basic thesis is that Buckingham Palace and St. James Palace actively lied about Kate’s royal titles for the past few years, and that Buckingham Palace should apologize about it. Some highlights:
Buckingham Palace says it has known since the royal wedding that Kate is a princess but refuses to explain why it spent two years insisting she wasn’t. I’ll set out now what the palace says, as this is still a point causing confusion amongst readers, then I’ll explain why I believe the last sentence of this official response from the Queen’s office is highly misleading, if not downright untrue, following my earlier story about how Prince William surprised the world by describing his wife’s occupation as Princess of the United Kingdom.
When he did so, it made headlines around the world because for two years the UK and international media had been told she wasn’t a princess. Challenged by the Daily Express, Buckingham Palace promised to look into it.
In its response, the palace now says this: “Upon marriage to HRH Prince William of Wales, Catherine Middleton was entitled to use the name of her husband, Princess William of Wales, as the wife of a Royal Prince. On the occasion of their wedding, the Queen conferred on Prince William the title of HRH the Duke Cambridge and the couple became known as TRHs the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. So the Duchess of Cambridge has since her wedding day been a princess, and it was for this reason that “Princess of the United Kingdom” was noted on the registration of her son, Prince George of Cambridge. This has been the understanding of Buckingham Palace from the outset. We will not be commenting further on this matter.”
It’s that last sentence that troubles me. Because on April 29, 2011, the day of the royal wedding, a team of press officers acting for Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and St. James’s Palace briefed the world’s media outside Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace that, as a royal duchess, Kate was not a princess. Incredulous reporters from around the world asked: “But surely the wife of a prince is a princess, whatever other titles she has? “Apparently not. It’s not as simple as that,” the press officers said in turn. “The wife of a prince doesn’t automatically become a princess if she’s given another title.”
They said this was the advice they had received from the Queen’s office at Buckingham Palace. And as the Queen is what is known as the Fount of Honour, she is the final arbiter on these things. But in the days following the wedding this view was challenged by some veteran royal watchers who insisted that, although a royal duchess title is a more senior title than plain old Princess William, Kate had the right to use both and enjoyed the rank of a Princess. When I went back to William and Kate’s press office, other authorities, and a couple of the press officers I had spoken to on royal wedding day, there was a swift passing of the buck: the information had come from Buckingham Palace and I should speak to them because they were the authority on this, I was told.
So three times I did speak to a spokesman for the Queen, who assured me with growing exasperation that all those royal watchers were wrong and the Duchess of Cambridge was in no way, shape or form a princess. He also insisted that, contrary to what they claimed, the Queen Mother, Countess of Wessex, and Sarah, Duchess of York had never been princesses either.
He was wrong, plain wrong, I now realise. But faced with conflicting claims, I chose to go with what I was told was the ultimate authority on these matters: someone speaking on behalf of the Queen. Had the press officers been told what to say to stop the press christening her Princess Kate, did a private secretary give incorrect information to the press officers, or had they simply miscontrued? Buckingham Palace won’t say.
…The person I spoke to most about all of this is actually one of the most helpful people on royal history and ceremony and I don’t want to see him scapegoated for the palace’s collective failure. I just want Buckingham Palace as an instituton to apologise and say: sorry, we got it wrong. We all make mistakes – like all reporters, I certainly have – but, unfortunately, the Royal Household seems institutionally incapable of admitting it has ever got anything wrong. Mistakes and misinformation diminish the standing and authority of the Queen but a failure to admit to them does even more damage.
[From The Express]
Basically, the guy is calling out Buckingham Palace’s lackeys (or as Diana called them, “The Men in Grey”) for lying about Kate’s title this whole time. But here’s the thing: I don’t think Buckingham Palace was lying. I think the Queen very purposefully did not give Kate a “princess” title and the Queen made sure her people told the press that Kate was only supposed to be referred to as “the Duchess of Cambridge” and never “Princess Catherine” or “Princess William”. And I think William was pissed off about that. I think William wanted Kate to be considered a princess, and he had been fighting for Kate to get a princess title for years. So William gave her a “princess” title on Prince George’s birth certificate and rather than have some royal family kerfuffle, Buckingham Palace merely submitted to William’s princess scheme. Doesn’t that make more sense?
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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