THE BRIDE
AN UNCOMMON
PRINCESS
Kate Middleton’s rise
from middle-class roots
to the royal family
CATHERINE ELIZABETH MIDDLETON was
born on Jan. 9,1982, at the Royal Berkshire
Hospital in Reading, England, a large com-
mercial town just west of London on the River
Thames. Three years earlier, Michael and
Carole Middleton, her parents, had purchased
a semi-detached home in the nearby village
of Bradfield Southend for the middling sum
of $165,000. It was here that Kate spent the
early part of her rather unremarkable child-
hood. Yet despite these bland beginnings, she
would go on, at age 28, to become the first
commoner betrothed to a future British king
since Anne Hyde did so in the tumultuous
mid-17th century. Unlike Anne, however,
Kate, with her thick brown tresses and steely
good looks, would first have to endure the
longest job interview in history and the sobri-
quet “Waity Katie.”
Hers was a decidedly middle-class family:
Michael and Carole first met while working
as flight attendants (he later became a pilot),
and Carole’s ancestry in particular is rooted
in the coal-mining clans of Hetton-le-Hole,
south of Newcastle. Yet Michael’s Middleton
progenitors were entrepreneurs whose lucra-
tive wool and cloth concerns date back to 18th
century Yorkshire. So it was not a surprise that,
| in 1987, shortly after the birth of their third
| child, James, Carole would launch a Middle-
<
a“ ton venture—Party Pieces, selling ready-made P r in c e s s -to -b e : Middleton will be the first commoner to marry a future king in 350 years
II loot bags and other children’s party parapher-
£ nalia. It was here, in the mail-order catalogues a tennis court, and Party Pieces is now a multi- dogs and go skiing every year”—and neigh-
s || Carole put together, that Kate received her million-pound party-supply company run hours have become famous among British
I II first public exposure, in photographs model- out of an old farm with packers stuffing the journalists for their loyalty to the family and
z Sn ling her parents’ merchandise. loot bags in a converted cow shed. unwillingness to dish.
||1 The business proved successful enough Such upward mobility might have instilled Kate met William in 2001, while the pair
§11 that the Middletons were soon sending their im m odest aspirations in K ate—she and were studying at the University of St. Andrews
iff three children to expensive M arlborough younger sibling Pippa did secure nouveau in Scotland. Kate, five m onths older, was
III College, in Wiltshire (Kate was reportedly riche reputations as the “wisteria sisters” already romantically involved, as was William.
||| bullied at an earlier private school). And they (coincidentally, decorative and “climbing” Both students of art history, they remained
||| moved into a new home in Berkshire, one of wisteria grows up the outside walls of the friends for a year or so, and their outside
§ |l the so-called “hom e counties” bordering Middleton home). But in fact, Kate’s hopes romantic entanglements soon permitted them
ijjjM London. The Middletons’ $1.6-million home- for the future stayed down to earth. She once to move in together with two other friends
ijil| stead, in the village of Bucklebury, sits on told friends all she wanted from life was to as roommates (a British media agreement
2^1 expansive grounds complete with horses and “get married, have a nice house, a couple of that William be left alone while at university
MACLEAN’S MAGAZINE 63
w
TH E ROYAL ENG AG EM ENT
didn’t hurt). When Kate modelled lingerie
on stage during a charity fashion show—an
athletic young woman, her appearance was
rather more wholesome than steamy—Wil-
liam sat obviously riveted in a $450 front-row
seat. They were soon an item.
She appears to have a soothing influence
on her man. W hen William, unhappy as an
art history student, contemplated leaving
St. Andrews, Kate talked him out of it, sug-
gesting he merely change his field of study
to geography. He did just that (the pair both
graduated from the university in 2005). Wil-
liam and Kate were first p h o tographed
together in 2004 skiing at Klosters, a Swiss
m ountain resort, am ounting to a sort of
postcard announcem ent of their relation-
ship. That snapshot triggered a maelstrom
of media interest and handed the paparazzi
enorm ous incentive to hound W illiam’s
potential consort. The Times reported that
a single picture of a bikini-clad Kate might
fetch upwards of $50,000.
Told by a friend how lucky
she was to be with William,
Middleton countered
he was lucky to have her
At the same time, Elizabeth II reportedly
expressed concern that Kate should secure a
job—something to ground her through the
chaos o f royal celebrity. She began working
at Jigsaw, a clothing chain, as an accessories
buyer, but left in the fall of 2008, first to pur-
sue a career in photography, and later to take
up work at the family firm.
That first job as a buyer helped cement
her reputation as a fashion icon, albeit of a
tamer variety than Diana. In 2006, attending
the C heltenham races, she wore tailored
tweed com plem ented by a controversial
mink hat. She appeared to be tempering the
audacity of Diana with the sobriety of Camilla,
duchess of Cornwall. Sometimes, her inner
Diana won out. Watching William graduate
from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
in early 2006, Kate whispered to friends: “I
love the uniform . It’s so, so sexy.” (A lip
reader hired for the occasion by the ITN
television news outlet to watch Kate caught
the remark.)
Her attendance at Sandhurst, along with
the Queen, Charles and Camilla, was a sure
Model student: (clockwise from top)
A t University o f St. Andrews; as a schoolgirl in
1989; playing field hockey at her grade school
64 NOVEMBER 29, 2010
Centre of attention: Outside her home in
2007 (above left); partying in London (below)
sign Kate was entering the royal fold. Yet for
some there was not enough Princess Di verve,
prompting complaints that Kate is dull—that
she did little more than ride horses in Berk-
shire, shoot in Scotland, and go to exclusive
London nightclubs.
In 2007, on her 25th birthday, the papar-
azzi hordes arrived at the door of the $1.5-mil-
lion flat her parents had purchased for her
in London’s fashionable Chelsea district. Wor-
ries surrounding her safety—and very likely
the m em ories of D iana’s history with the
press—reportedly persuaded Prince Charles
to pay for K ate’s protection (she was not
entitled to police guards until William for-
malized the relationship). William, m ean-
while, pleaded with media to spare her. Later
that year, Kate, who sometime during 2006
hired Gerrard Tyrrell, a lawyer whose other
celebrity clients include Kate Moss, filed a
harassment complaint against theDailyMail.
It all lent her an air of confidence in the face
of bedlam—she was never once rattled. Told
by a friend how lucky she was to be in a rela-
tionship with William, she countered he was
lucky to have her.
The media blitz and the couple’s response
to it unfolded against a backdrop of anticipa-
tion they would quickly become engaged.
Instead, they broke up. “I wasn’t very happy
about it, but it made me a stronger person,”
Kate told the world earlier this week, during
her first television interview alongside Wil-
liam. The split, in the spring of2007, unleashed
a to rren t o f nastiness from friends of the
prince, much of it describing Kate as grasp-
ing—a circumstance that led some to wonder
whether the breakup was not fabricated to
weed out disloyal hangers-on. Their reunion
soon took place on an island in the Seychelles,
where they agreed they would take the notion
of marriage seriously.
It would not, however, be a swift process.
D espite the new com m itm ent, still Kate
appeared in a limbo of endless courting. The
press called her “Waity Katie.” The Daily Mail
wrote that “waiting for the prince to put a ring
on her finger seems to be the primary object-
ive in her life.” And now they are betrothed.
After all this time she has proven her mettle.
This—the long courtships, the scrutiny—is now
the new normal in royal marriage. The house
of Windsor has learned from Diana that the
unprepared will flame out, and they have hit
upon how to properly groom a new recruit.
Kate M iddleton, cool and com posed, has
passed the test. N ic h o l a s k 6 h l e r
M A C L E A N ’S M A G A Z IN E 65
