Few events do as much for royalty's image as weddings. Many will scoff, but tens of millions will tune in for next year's fairytale union of Prince William and his girlfriend, Kate Middleton, writes Mark Hennessy, London Editor
KATE MIDDLETON, unlike many other children of the English upper middle-class, didn't have a poster of Prince William on her bedroom wall when she was a teenager boarding at Marlborough College. But next year, she will walk down the aisle to marry him.
In the past, announcements about impending royal weddings would be done via the court circular, but, in a sign of the times, the news that the two had engaged a month ago in Kenya was released first by Clarence House on Twitter.
Besides getting his girlfriend’s agreement, Prince William also asked permission of her father, while the Royal Marriages Act 1772 meant Queen Elizabeth’s consent was required, too. None proved an obstacle.
Prime minister David Cameron received the news as he led a cabinet meeting in No 10 Downing Street, when an aide gave him a note, although he will have likely been glad of the distraction.
Just an hour beforehand, Cameron had announced that he was abandoning plans to have a personal photographer paid for from the public purse, while a statement on compensation to British prisoners held in Guantánamo came later.
Both were relegated to minor placings on the news bulletins.
Expressing delight at the news, Mr Cameron wished the young couple well: “This is a a great day for our country, a great day for the royal family and obviously a great day for Prince William and for Kate,” he said.
The two have been together for eight years, since they met when they were both studying in St Andrews University in Scotland. They have been together since, bar one hiccup when they separated for a period in 2007.
She will become the first “commoner” to marry an heir to the British throne since Anne Hyde, who was said to have the “courage, cleverness and energy almost worthy of a king’s blood” wed the Duke of York, later King James II in 1660 after the duke had seduced her and been forced into marrying her by his brother.
The Middletons’ association with the British aristocracy has not always been entirely happy. Her father was a dispatcher with British Airways and her mother, Carole, an air hostess with the airline before they set up a mail-order business selling items for children’s parties in the 1980s which made them millionaires.
With money came entry to higher society. Some of the prince’s friends are known to have made jokes about “all doors to manual” when Mrs Middleton was within earshot, along with mocking her for saying toilet rather than lavatory and “pardon” rather than “I beg your pardon”.
Princess Diana showed that entering the royal family is not for the faint-hearted, although Middleton is given a better chance than most of surviving the relentless spotlight. This is particularly because of her ability to keep silent – and to keep her friends silent – during the relationship, which has gone on for so long that she was nicknamed “Waity Katie” by the tabloids.
However, while she has been willing to make compromises to get her prince, Middleton is said to know her own mind and her own worth. In one of the few remarks made by her that was overheard and ended up in the tabloids, Middleton is said to have told a friend: “He is so lucky to be going out with me.”
The prince has reportedly given her his mother’s engagement ring and he was quoted yesterday as saying: “It’s very special to me. As Kate’s very special to me now, it was right to put the two together.”
So far, the British public seems less than impressed.
Just 29 per cent, according to an ITV poll last night, believe she is the right woman for William, although 43 per cent say they would prefer to see her as queen, rather than his father’s wife, Camilla.