Battle of Brothers by Robert Lacey

Author:Robert Lacey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2020-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

18

Kate’s Not!

‘You go through the good times. You go through the bad times – both personally and within a relationship as well.’

(Kate Middleton, 17 November 2010)

Camilla had confided to Kate the secret of hanging on to a busy prince: fit your timetable – well, basically your whole life – around his. But after St Andrews University, William’s timetable was proving rather un-fit-roundable. His next destination was the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where he was due to spend the best part of 2006 training to be an army officer – the start of his plan to do stints in all three military services whose commander-in-chief he would become as king. Marriage had not been included in that schedule.

In the meantime, the prince, now twenty-three, undertook his first solo royal tour abroad when he flew to New Zealand to represent the Queen at the sixtieth anniversary of Allied victory in the Second World War. Happily, the British Lions rugby team were touring the islands at the same time, which made for a lively ten days of engagements – rendered all the livelier by screaming crowds of hysterical young women. Kate followed her boyfriend’s progress – and the screaming – via the evening TV news bulletins at home.

While Kate’s medium-to-long-term objective was quite simple – to lead William in handcuffs to the altar – for the time being she had to devise her own independent career path as camouflage. This was a matter of both personal and public tactics. In neither respect would it help Ms Middleton to appear the slightest bit needy – and of course there was the ultimate and unthinkable possibility that she might end up getting dumped! In that event, the woman who would be known for the rest of her life as the girl-that-Wills-let-go would unquestionably need a plausible career to provide clear shape to the rebuilding of her non-royal identity.

Party Pieces provided the model. With the help of her parents, Kate set about trying to create her own company that would design and sell high-quality but reasonably priced children’s clothes online. She would try her hand as a businesswoman. The would-be fashion executive toured Britain looking at samples and flew to Milan to check out possible manufacturers. At the same time, her parents set her up in her own Chelsea flat within safe range of Sloane Square – one never wants to live too far from Peter Jones.

April, 2005: Marriage of Prince Charles to Camilla

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