Daniela Elser: Reason Kate and William will be seen together a lot less

Prince William is enormously proud of his wife's work and is happy that she has become popular with the public. Photo / Getty Images

Once upon a time in land far away, there was a beautiful teenager named Diana who met a jug-eared prince in desperate need of a wife. (Two other candidates had already said no by this point.)

So he popped the question (in either his childhood nursery or his ex-girlfriend Camilla's cabbage patch depending on which version you believe), got his Mumsy to call in the family jeweller (Garrard) and got on with his procreative duty.

We all know what happened next and how this story veered from rosy-hued fairytale to dark Brothers Grimm-worthy cautionary tale in record time.

Their eldest son Prince William chose a completely different path to wedded (let's assume) bliss, dating his university housemate Kate Middleton for a good decade (on and off) before finally settling on the jolly hockey sticks Home Counties gal (said with a suitably cutglass accent) without a lick of aristocratic blood to speak of.

In stark, blessed, contrast to his parents' marriage, William's has been nothing but a bang-up success with the couple promptly producing three children and becoming the cheery, hardworking double-act upon which the entire royal family's future is predicated.

Here's where we get to the big fat 'but'. With the Queen in the final, poignant chapter of her historic 70-year reign and a once-in-a-century (or thereabouts) change in the offing, the royal family has quietly been putting in place a new blueprint for the royal family – one which could risk putting the Cambridges' union under the very same stress as the Wales' was all those decades ago.

To understand what is going on, you need to rewind to a couple of weeks when Kate flew to Denmark flew to Denmark for a whistlestop two day fact-finding mission for her Early Years Foundation. She slid down an enormous slippery dip, gambolled about the forest with some preschoolers and met with Crown Princess Mary. From beginning to end it was a sterling achievement, definitive proof that despite being chronically shy, after a decade in the job, Kate is more than ready to operate as a one-woman act.

According to a royal source, Kate's Denmark visit is a sign of engagements to come. Photo / Getty

This trip was just a taste of things to come, according to the Daily Mail's Dan Wootton who has revealed this week that there is "a bold, but quietly implemented, new strategy" being implemented behind palace gates and which will see "Kate become the most publicly prominent female in the royal family."

A royal source told Wootton: "What will happen is that when the couple go on visits abroad it will be more like what Charles and Diana did, where they each branch out and do more engagements on their own. They'll go to the same country, but she'll go her way and he'll go his."

But this way, very clear danger lies.

You don't need a crystal ball or to have spent years assiduously following royal events to predict how this scenario will play out – a foreign country, cheering schoolchildren and William and Kate parting ways – and to guess which HRH the press will happily follow around.

Sorry Wills old mate: It's not you.

And this is where we get perilously close to dicey Wales territory.

With the duo set to tour Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas later this month, and with rumours of a North American tour potentially later in the year, this scenario could play out sooner rather than later.

Among all the factors that contributed to Charles and Di's union crumbling, in between the infidelity, the mental illness, and the indisputable incompatibility of two people who should never have been sat next to each other at a shooting party let alone marry, is another factor that gets largely overlooked: Ego. Or specifically, Charles' ego.

For an entire decade in the '70s he was the star of the show, the royal who photographers clamoured to shoot at polo matches and who starred on the front pages. That equation changed dramatically with the arrival of his doe-eyed wife whose youth, beauty and deft touch with the public soon cast Charles as the ultimate '80s milquetoast.

During walkabouts, when the duo split up to cover more ground, the side that ended up with Charles often groaned.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their three children: Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis in 2021. Photo / Handout /Getty Images

"I seem to do nothing but collect flowers these days," he reportedly said at the time. "I know my role."

Second fiddle, you see, was not the role Charles had been born to play and yet suddenly it was the one he found himself permanently stuck in. Ultimately, his resentment and jealousy of the media and public's instant adoration of Diana created another fissure in their already fragile union.

So, while it might make perfect sense for Kensington Palace to pursue this new game plan for the Cambridges, there is a world of difference between something that sounds tickety-boo in a meeting on a wet Tuesday and being confronted with blunt reality. The reality of William having to watch the media and the press merrily trail after his darling wife, Pied Piper-style, while he is left with only two cadet reporters, a junior government minister and a waste-treatment plant to visit, or some such.

That's a risk that palace insiders are cognisant of, according to the Mail, which reports: "Courtiers acknowledge this [new approach] could put some strain on William, just like it did his father Charles, when the cameras naturally gravitate towards his more glamorous wife."

The royal source said: "That can have its difficulties because then you see the Press will only be following her jobs. And that's what happened with Charles and Diana.

"William will be seen as the boring bloke in the blue suit. The blood royals always make out they don't want the attention, but of course they do."

What clearly sets the Cambridges apart is that theirs is a rock-solid marriage.

"They've got a solid relationship and she gives him confidence," a friend who was at their wedding has previously told The Times. "There is no jealousy, no friction, they are happy for each other's successes."

"In private, William speaks with pride about his wife's work," royal editor Roya Nikkhah wrote earlier this year. "William is happy that the future Princess of Wales has found her groove and popularity with the public. There is only occasionally a twinge of frustration when they do joint engagements and he is cropped out of the photographs."

But, if there are 'twinges' now, what happens if this dynamic, of William being routinely eclipsed by Kate, becomes a feature of every tour, every engagement and every official outing?

As an "impeccably placed, longstanding royal insider" told Nikkhah that the fundamental difference between the two of them comes down to this: "William will be respected. Catherine will be loved."

What is certain is that this new phase in their Cambridges' working lives will bring with it new and increased burdens on their relationship as they wend their way closer to the throne.

Prince William is enormously proud of his wife's work and is happy that she has become popular with the public. Photo / Getty Images

It's easy to forget that it was only in 2017 that they began full-time royal duties; until then they had been granted the luxury by the Queen to live the closest thing to a normal life as possible for a future sovereign. Sequestered away in rural Norfolk, William had a job, Kate did the Waitrose run and their son Prince George went to a local Montessori preschool. As a close friend told The Times earlier this year: "That time was hugely important, because their working life has become more pressured the further away from that time they've got."

The foundation of their marriage and partnership might be solid but it is going to come under new stresses and strains in the years to come as the strain on them to perform increases and their workload only ramps up.

With a joint 40th birthday party on the cards for this northern summer (Kate passed the milestone in January, William will in June) here's hoping they toast one another. The future of the British monarchy rests on their marriage. No pressure now.