Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge engages in a walkabout in Ballymena town centre on February 28, 2019 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Photo / Getty Images
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge engages in a walkabout in Ballymena town centre on February 28, 2019 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
To find the first Princess of Wales you have to go all the way back to the 14th century and a woman named Joan of Kent. She was, according to the French poet and historian Jean Froissart, "in her time the most beautiful woman in all the realm of England and the most loved".
Which is apt, given that is exactly the same sort of fawning idolatry the last user of that title, Diana, Princess of Wales received and that the next bearer of it Kate, currently the Duchess of Cambridge, is now enjoying.
It's easy to forget these days, when the UK press devolves into a regular fit of syrupy headlines about Kate on a daily basis, that it was not always this way. (On Christmas Eve, when Kate's charity carol concert, recorded earlier in the month, screened and in a surprise move she performed on the piano, the British press was in collective bliss.)
In fact, the reality is that while the mother-of-three might now be held up as a paragon of royal perfection, the Sloaney commoner who stepped in and somehow managed to yank the monarchy back from the abyss, things were not always this way.
Instead, on her 40th birthday today, it's worth remembering that her earliest days of HRH-dom were far less rosy than most people realise.
Rewind to April 29, 2011 and thousands of people crowded outside Buckingham Palace and down The Mall to cheer on Prince William and not-blushing bride Kate. With far more passion than his father (not that that would be a hard bar to surpass) the newlywed groom leaned in and kissed his wife.
William and Kate on their wedding day. Photo / AP
Insert here all the cliched fairytale lines the press trawled out day after day after day.
But when the frenzy was over and the couple made their way back to their $1400-per-month rented cottage in Anglesey, Wales, a new and complicated world awaited the freshly-installed Duchess.
To start with, getting her hair blow dried and prowling the Kings Rd in search of wrap dresses no longer quite cut the English mustard in terms of how she spent her days. For the first time in her life, Kate was now expected to work.
But what was a new member of the royal family, with a second-class degree in art history and a minor interest in photography, to actually do?
(Still, her achievements, such as they are, were a step up on her mother-in-law who entered palace life having left school at age 16 and with her highest scholastic achievement being awarded a prize for best-kept guinea pig at her boarding school.)
What faced Kate was a lose-lose situation. Race headlong into her new vocation and she could fall into the same trap that ensnared Diana, Sarah, the Duchess of York, and Sophie, the Countess of Wessex, which is, throwing herself into things with naive gusto.
On the other hand, take things slowly and take the time to learn the ropes and it would look like she was shirking her new duties before the Buckingham Palace footmen had even finished getting the wedding cake out of the Aubusson rugs.
Rebecca Priestly (nee Deacon) was the Duchess' private secretary for seven years and, speaking to the Daily Mail's royal editor Rebecca English this week, she explained what happened next.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Queen Elizabeth II watch part of a children's sports event while visiting Vernon Park during a Diamond Jubilee visit to Nottingham on June 13, 2012 in Nottingham, England. Photo / Getty Images
"I said: 'Right, what next? You have the philanthropic world at your feet. There are so many directions you can go in terms of causes you can get involved in,'" Priestly recounts. "Catherine wanted to get under the skin of this new role and the challenges she was about to take on.
"She wanted to learn. There were a lot of under-the-radar visits and she saw people privately to help her understand the issues she wanted to put her name to."
But this softly, softly approach, outwardly, looked like a certain work-shy indolence with her soon earning a reputation in the press for eschewing the dull graft of royal life for the glamorous perks of the position.
In 2014, the press put the boot in when the Cambridges left George at home for a holiday, The Sun called her the "Duchexcess of Cambridge" reporting, on "How Kate quickly developed taste for high life."
In 2016, the Daily Mail ran a story with the headline: "William and Kate borrowed Duke of Westminster's private jet to fly to secret ski break at five-star Courchevel resort (well, Wills has worked 20 hours a week and done three royal engagements this year!)."
They also lambasted her for leaving William to take part in an official St Patrick's engagement solo, with the Mail accusing her of being "a duchess in danger of failing in her duty" and saying that "to gain a few leisure hours at her grand home, Kate snubbed war heroes".
Later the same year, The Sun dubbed William and Kate "throne idle".
It was not only the press who were less than impressed with this Windsor newcomer. Kate's arrival reportedly ruffled feathers inside the royal family.
English reports there was "a definite sense of 'defensiveness'" towards her from other quarters, "particularly Clarence House," that is the official office and residence of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge talks to guests at an evening reception for members of the Diplomatic Corps at Buckingham Palace on December 11, 2019 in London, England. Photo / Getty Images
So what of Kate and Camilla?
After all, they are both women who only a couple of decades ago would have been deemed too middle-class or far too scandalous to be given entree into the gilded royal world and yet had both seen love trump snobbery and sanctimonious moralising.
According to biographer Katie Nicholl, in the lead-up to the Cambridges' wedding, Camilla had taken it upon herself to take Kate under her wing.
In February 2011, the bride-to-be, her sister Pippa Matthews (nee Middleton), the former Mrs Parker Bowles and her daughter Laura Lopes met up for lunch at Koffman's restaurant, in Knightsbridge.
Over foie gras, sea bass and a souffle (what else would you expect two future queens to dine on?) the by-then seasoned Duchess was heard telling Kate: "If I can give you one piece of advice …" Diligently, the then 29-year-old took out a notebook from Queen-approved brand Smythson and took notes.
Later, the Duchess of Cornwall gave her stepdaughter-in-law a gold bracelet featuring two letter Cs (and which she regularly wears even now).
But all that familial bonhomie hit a road bump when Kate joined the roster of working members of the royal family, and per the Mail, "there was an element of professional envy within their household at Kate's burgeoning popularity".
Never before had there been not one but two future kings and their wives bumping up against one another in a sort of succession traffic jam.
As a courtier told the paper: "The co-ordination required with three generations working alongside each other has been tricky."
It was a lesson Diana had learned all too acutely and far too late. Become too much of a drawcard, become too adored by the masses, and it will painfully rebound and backfire given the trenchantly hierarchical nature of the monarchy. Turns out, outshining those above you on the regal totem pole can put a target on one's back.
English reports that within the royal family "tensions persisted" and that, according to the courtier, "it took a while to get the balance right".
Even as Kate was finding her feet on the work front, on the personal side, things were about to get a lot more complicated.
In December 2012, news broke that she was pregnant after she had to be hospitalised with hyperemesis gravidarum and on a midsummer day in 2013 a clearly tired (but still perfectly coiffured) Kate and William introduced their son Prince George to the waiting wall of press.
While she might have officially done her duty and fulfilled the most important requirement of any Queen-in-waiting, speedily and efficiently popping out an heir, Kate's first year of motherhood would prove decidedly rocky.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge smiles during a meeting with Galway Community Circus performers, local artists and young musicians on March 5, 2020 in Galway, Ireland. Photo / Getty Images
On July 23, they brought baby George home to Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace (where they lived at the time) and the Queen arrived the following morning to meet her great-grandson and the future King George VII.
"Catherine and William were shattered. It was very hot in the cottage – there was no airconditioning and they had barely slept. George was crying so much they could barely have a conversation," a source told Nicholl.
Their newborn son was, reportedly, a far from perfect bub who was often hungry (Kate is said to have breastfed) and he cried a lot.
Only 39 days after giving birth, Kate was back on the royal hustings, making an official appearance at a Welsh ultra-marathon. (It's not all tiaras and organic gooseberries, sadly.)
Less than two months into the parenthood game, they decided they needed help, calling in William's own former nanny Jessie Webb. It would not be until the beginning of 2014, when George started eating solid food, that he finally slept through the night.
Webb was replaced by Spanish-born Maria Teresa Turrion Borallo in March 2014, who remains with the family to this day.
For Kate today, and another two babies later, she might have got the hang of her official gig but like women the world over, still finds juggling kids and her day job a tricky thing.
"I have been told by several different sources that as a first-time mother, Kate struggled initially to cope with the adjustment of doing the nursery drop-off, then racing to London for meetings and to attend official functions such as state dinners," English has written.
"She'll be the first person to say how lucky she is to have the help of a nanny and staff," a source told the Daily Mail. "But going from being a mummy, worrying if a child is not well or had a good day at nursery, to transforming herself into a public figure and shining at an evening reception is tough emotionally. Ultimately, her children are her priority."
Okay, so let's talk about Kate's workload for a moment here. Official statistics, out this week, show she undertook 115 engagements in 2021, down from 116 in 2020.
However, those other days aren't all just tennis lessons and teaching young George which is the correct fork for grouse. Keep in mind here the military-level planning that would go into every public outing and the endless meetings to plan future tours, projects (like her pioneering Early Years Foundation) and outings.
Of course her lot does not, for a second, even remotely compare to that of a single parent or a frontline worker with kids or any woman, anywhere, making do without the help of staff, unlimited resources and a doting husband happy to do the school run.
However, what I think is worth keeping in mind is that what is required of Kate, which few if any other mothers in the world have to face, is that every time she walks out the front door, she is required to permanently be "on", in full dazzling megawatt princess mode.
She cannot ever be caught frowning, or looking bored or worried or tired or take a sick day. At the heart of her job is a performance which she must give flawlessly, time and time and time again.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge engages in a walkabout in Ballymena town centre on February 28, 2019 in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Photo / Getty Images
Then there is her husband. While her brother-in-law Prince Harry has regularly spoken about his mental health issues, it is only recently that William has opened up about the acute psychological toll his job with the East Anglia Air Ambulance took on him and the Cambridges' life.
"After I had my own children," he has said, "the relation between the job and the personal life was what really took me over the edge, and I started feeling things that I have never felt before."
In November, he appeared in a video with two first responders and admitted to "returning home with the stresses and strains of the day weighing on my mind, and wanting to avoid burdening my family with what I had seen".
In December last year, William appeared on an episode of the Time to Walk podcast and went into more detail, saying: "You just feel everyone's pain, everyone's suffering. And that's not me. I've never felt that before."
Kate marks her milestone birthday today. There will be the usual official shot put out by the palace and, who knows, the Queen might even pep up and give her some sort of spiffy new gong as a gift and there will be a sea of excessively laudatory, cloying news stories about how Kate is the greatest thing to happen to the monarchy since the Norman Conquest.
But, in all of this, keep in mind, the reality is not quite as simple or picture perfect.
What, these days, gets lost in the mix are all those years of her inadvertently upsetting senior family members, being targeted by the press, being regularly criticised for the job she was doing, while dealing with the pressures of new motherhood and a husband who was suffering psychologically.
I'm not suggesting that Kate deserves oodles of sympathy and has had it so damn hard (quick! Get out the violins!) but that she has had it harder than most people realise.
