How Kate Middleton captured a prince and a nation

The young girls at Marlborough College, a prep school in Berkshire, could not stop gawking at the future king of England as he took to the pitch as part of Eton’s visiting field hockey team. Prince William was everything they had dreamed about—tall, blonde, blue-eyed and handsome, with an inherent shyness that only added to his appeal. A 16-year-old brunette, the captain of the girls’ field hockey team, however, hung back from the crowd, surreptitiously watching the prince from the sidelines.

That was the first time Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, laid eyes on her future husband. Not that she wasn’t a fan of the dreamboat prince. “No one knew more about the heir,” writes Christopher Andersen, whose latest book on Kate is as magnetic as its subject. “Kate slavishly monitored his official schedule on the Buckingham Palace website and inhaled whatever was written about William in the press.”

It would be another three years before he saw her, when both joined the University of St Andrews after school. William, intent on pursuing a normal college experience, invited the other students on his floor for a drink. He greeted each visitor at the door of his dorm room with an outstretched arm and a disarming, “I’m William”, writes Andersen. Standing slightly behind several other dorm residents, Kate had to be nudged to the front. What happened next was embarrassing. “I turned bright red and sort of scuttled off,” Kate later recalled, “feeling very shy about meeting him.”

Soon, she got over her shyness and forged a “casual friendship” with the prince. The dynamics, however, changed after a charity fashion show in which Kate walked the ramp in a sheer lace dress. William, who had doled out £200 for a seat in the front row, couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her natural beauty, a prince who needed saving and a match-making mama all combined to align the stars in Kate’s favour, and soon she landed the man of her dreams.

Andersen’s admiration of Kate is evident, and at times the book feels more like a fanboy account than that of a royal biographer. Still, one can’t help feeling that much of the praise is warranted. Kate’s compassion is real. Not for her the aloof, lofty facade of most of the Windsors. She is regal and human at the same time, and her appeal lies in this unique alchemy. Kate, much like her mother-in-law, could connect with people. She was “exceedingly talented” at working the crowd, said William’s private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton.

A princess who laughs, hugs and chats with commoners? The Windsors, in the beginning, did not know what to make of it, because they had only seen one precedent—Princess Diana—and her relationship with the firm was conflicted at best. But Queen Elizabeth II soon saw Kate’s potential to raise the popularity of a flagging monarchy. She was, for example, ecstatic after William and Kate’s first overseas trip to Canada. A poll taken around that time showed that opposition to the monarchy in Canada had suffered a sharp decline; 60 per cent of the population now strongly supported keeping England’s monarch as their own. Kate had effortlessly charmed the people not just with her impeccable fashion, but also with her charisma and compassion.

Of course, Kate is no porcelain princess. Glimpses of her vulnerability, like the time when William broke up with her when they were dating or when she was given her cancer diagnosis, crack the facade of perfection and add depth to the book. Even her flaws only make her seem more human. She is, for example, not seen at her finest during her dealings with her sister-in-law. Mountains were made out of molehills—like when Meghan asked to borrow Kate’s lip gloss at a royal event, which she felt was unhygienic. Or Kate’s fears that Meghan would overshadow her sister Pippa at the latter’s wedding to a billionaire hedge fund manager. Despite everything, it was Kate who encouraged William to initiate a reconciliation with his brother (of whom she was very fond) after Harry’s exit from the monarchy.

Most books on the royals are enjoyable because of the vicarious pleasure one gets from reading about their antics and escapades. One, however, feels invested in Kate’s story. She makes us care for her, because we feel she cares for us.

EXCERPTS

TELLING THE CHILDREN ABOUT KATE’S DIAGNOSIS

Telling the children—that would be the hardest thing of all. Harder than enduring the aftermath of an hours-long operation, harder than suffering the stabbing pains in her abdomen that had landed her on the operating table at the London Clinic in the first place, harder even than desperately trying to conceal the truth from a world that so easily feasted on conspiracy theories. Usually, this ritual of picking up the children was a high point of the day: a leisurely fourteen-minute drive from Adelaide Cottage in Windsor Park, down the narrow stretch of A322 that leads past the endless expanse of green lawns and ancient trees to Winkfield Row and Lambrook School.

There was even more reason to be upbeat today: the children were understandably excited by the prospect of two whole weeks without school. But this was also the moment when the family would have to pull together to confront some hard truths. As William drove their Portofino blue Range Rover SUV with his wife sitting ramrod straight at his side, they stared ahead in stony silence, dreading the task ahead. 

For this one fleeting moment at least, the Prince and Princess of Wales were determined not to dampen the children’s unfettered joy at having been sprung from school. With their ever-present royal protection detail of four Glock-armed officers right behind them, William and Kate pulled onto Lambrook’s circular drive—for security reasons, they are the only parents allowed to drive right up to the front door rather than wait near the front gate—and bounded out of their car, arms outstretched, to greet the little princes and princess. With headmaster Jonathan Perry’s wife, Jenny, rushing to keep up with them like a protective mother hen, the trio, all dressed in their identical navy blue school uniforms emblazoned with the interlocking letters L and S (for Lambrook School), scrambled to the waiting SUV, clambered into the back seat, and buckled up.

The chatter on the drive home would be familiar to any parent of school-age children—a patience-trying eruption of “Did so!” and “Did NOT !” rising exponentially until either Mummy or Pops spins around to lay down the law. For the most part, Louis remained silent while George and Charlotte bickered over whose turn it was to clean out the guinea pig cage—a messy task that often fell to Pops. “I have to spend my life cleaning out the guinea pig cage,” the future king once complained to a group of farmers, “because the children keep forgetting to do it!” 

How do we tell them? What do we say? We don’t want to frighten them.... Like so many moments in royal life, this one had to be expertly choreographed. Kate and William sat the children down at the long farmhouse-style table in the kitchen for their daily after-school snack. Usually, they were offered something healthy—yogurt, carrots, or perhaps an apple. Instead, Mummy today served up their all-time favorite treat: chocolate brownies from Gail’s Bakery in London.

While the children began to devour their brownies, Mummy gently talked about how much better she’d felt since coming home from the hospital in January, and how she looked forward to having fun with them over the next two weeks. Kate also explained why she sometimes still needed to rest—that when she was in the hospital, doctors found just a few of these tiny cancer cells, and to make sure they wouldn’t come back, Mummy was taking some special medicine. It’s the medicine, she told them, that sometimes made her tired. 

Kate and William went on to say that they had hoped to keep everything in the family, but that was no longer possible. People wanted to know why Mummy had not been out and about with Pops, doing her usual job. When their parents asked if they had any questions, George, Charlotte, and Louis shook their heads. Much to their parents’ relief, they did not appear traumatized—or even particularly surprised—by what they had been told.

KATE’S FIRST MEETING WITH MEGHAN

Still unsure of what to think—her big-sisterly instincts were telling her that the divorced American actress might not be the perfect fit for her Harry—Kate managed to put off meeting Meghan face-to-face for two full months after William made the effort. Now that she finally had Kate at Nott Cott, Meghan was determined to win her over despite the Duchess’s aversion to hugs. “Happy belated birthday!” Meghan burbled—Kate had turned thirty-five the day before—and handed the birthday girl a gift Meghan had thoughtfully wrapped herself: a $295 Smythson Portobello leather notebook.

Meghan’s charm offensive did not stop there. She served her guests a three-course dinner that she had prepared, and when William began coughing, Meghan darted into another room and returned with one of her favorite cold remedies: a homeopathic blend of turmeric, oil of oregano, vitamin C, and cayenne. William thanked her profusely and promised to down the concoction when they returned home to Apartment 1A, but Kate was unconvinced. “That’s very kind of you,” she said, “but my husband is quite conservative when it comes to medicine. Doesn’t like home remedies. He will never take that!”

Meghan was eager to earn Kate’s respect, if not her affection. She also appreciated, perhaps to a lesser degree than she should have, Kate’s seemingly effortless ability to walk the royal tightrope. Without having to be asked, both Kate and William offered to do whatever they could to help make Meghan’s transition into the royal family as seamless as possible. The Cambridges were turning out to be “amazing” partners, Harry and Meghan repeated as frequently and as publicly as possible in the ensuing months.

In truth, from the beginning each side harbored festering doubts about the other. Why, Meghan wondered, did Kate seem so hell-bent on delaying their first meeting? Kate, in turn, grew suspicious when Meghan complimented her style and asked the princess if she might recommend some of her favorite British designers—a request Kate instantly viewed as an attempt to poach her fashion contacts. William’s wife was unaware that their soon-to-be sister-in-law already had, primarily through her Hollywood friends and long-standing British pals like designer Misha Nonoo and Princess Eugenie, carefully cultivated fashion contacts of her own on both sides of the Atlantic.

Excerpted with permission from Simon & Schuster

KATE! THE COURAGE, GRACE, AND POWER OF THE WOMAN WHO WILL BE QUEEN

By Christopher Andersen

Published by Simon & Schuster

Price Rs1,499; pages 324