For a moment it seemed as though the Duchess of Cambridge might become embroiled in yet another messy, polarising ruckus about pampered royals suiting themselves at the expense of the rest of us. She turned up at an unlawful gathering at Clapham Common in the middle of lockdown! She wasn’t wearing a mask!
Her protection team seemed strangely unaware that earlier that Saturday morning last month, a senior police officer had warned that the vigil in south London for Sarah Everard, 33, who was abducted and murdered as she walked home at night, might be “attractive for terrorists”.
Yet somehow, the duchess still showed up, casually dressed with minimal security, with a bouquet of flowers she had picked from her palace garden. Later it was reported that she had sent a private letter of condolence to the family of the murdered woman.
Hang on a minute, are we talking about the right duchess? A feminist campaigner, showing solidarity with vulnerable women, with seeming disregard for police advice and lockdown regulations? Can we really be talking about Kate? There was an embarrassing muddle at Scotland Yard last week as senior commanders offered conflicting accounts of whether Britain’s future queen had attended the vigil legally, and whether the police had known of her attendance in advance.
It emerged from an independent report into policing of the event that the senior officer in charge of the operation learnt that the duchess had been present only from a television news report after she had left. Yet Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, told the BBC that “the Met did know [about the visit], absolutely”. Palace sources have described Kate’s visit as private, but Dick said she was there “in the course of her duties; she’s working”.
Getting the story straight has increasingly become a problem for royals embroiled in public relations debacles — just ask the Dukes of Sussex and York. Yet what emerged most clearly from Kate’s modestly controversial outing was not another disaster for the House of Windsor. It has turned into something of a triumph.
“I think she’s played a blinder,” says Jennie Bond, a former BBC royal correspondent and author of several books on the Windsors. Unlike some of her royal relatives, Kate, 39, has barely put a foot wrong in her public embrace of worthy causes over the past few years.
She has made early childhood and mental health the centrepieces of her charitable efforts. Her Early Years initiative produced a landmark survey of attitudes to the first five years of childhood and their links to subsequent social challenges such as addiction, family breakdown, suicide and homelessness. Her passion for photography helped launch a nationwide pandemic project aimed at capturing a portrait of Britain in the grip of Covid-19. “She’s widely admired now as a public figure,” says Bond, “and I think she’s demonstrating that she’s very much in touch with the mood of the country.”
Penny Junor, biographer of Prince William and Prince Harry, describes Kate’s visit to the vigil as a “wonderful gesture”. What might have turned into a made-for-tabloid tempest instead became the story of a young woman who lived in London before marrying a prince, and may have remembered what it was like to have to walk home alone at night.
After the manufactured theatrics of the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah Winfrey, Junor adds, “Kate was making a very subtle point. You don’t need to make a song and dance about things. She showed up at Clapham quietly with absolutely no fanfare. I just thought it spoke volumes.”
Few royal insiders are expecting Kate suddenly to turn into a fire-breathing apostle of “wokeness”, or even to express the remotest hint of a political belief. She does not issue bold proclamations to compare with, say, the welcome page of Harry and Meghan’s new website, Archewell, which announces: “Through our non-profit work, as well as creative activations, we drive systemic cultural change across all communities, one act of compassion at a time.”
Yet Kate is no stranger to acts of compassion, and her low-key approach may strike many as a great deal more effective. “When Harry and Meghan talked to Oprah, they were more concerned about their own welfare; it was all about them and that’s been their narrative all along,” says Junor. “But there’s a difference between service and self-service. I feel real service is doing things selflessly for others. I think that’s what Kate understands.”
She won’t be the queen of Britain for a while, but she’s already a queen of Zoom meetings. Through Kensington Palace’s social media feeds she has become an online video-conferencing force to be reckoned with during lockdown, and the causes she supports and the charities she endorses are reaping incalculable benefits. “All the Zoom calls William and Kate have done are showing them in a very good light,” says Bond. “Usually you just see a tiny bit of them on the telly or a picture in the paper or whatever. But you kind of feel from their work online you’re getting a peek inside their true personalities, inside their homes. They seem much more natural and Kate is coming across as very knowledgeable and compassionate.”
Junor adds: “I think the whole of lockdown has opened people’s eyes to working members of the royal family. They are reaching a far wider audience than before and Kate is coming out of it really well.”
In the past few weeks the duchess has spoken via video links to Harriet Nagaya, the founder of a community midwife project in Uganda; to nurses delivering vaccines in the Midlands; to frontline workers and counsellors dealing with the mental health impact of Covid; and to the family of a 12-year-old boy whose life was saved by a volunteer at the Shout 85258 mental-health support service. It was during the Cambridges’ visit to another mental health project, at a school in east London, that William offered his first response to the Winfrey interview: “We’re very much not a racist family.”
One notable success last month was the video Kate posted to her official @KensingtonRoyal Instagram account, showing a pair of hands opening a box addressed to HRH The Duchess of Cambridge. The hands were unmistakably Kate’s — she was wearing her sapphire and diamond engagement ring, formerly worn by Diana, Princess of Wales.
The box was ripped open and the packaging removed to reveal a book: Hold Still, a collection of photographs of the British experience of the pandemic, with proceeds benefiting the National Portrait Gallery and the mental health charity Mind. Kate, a keen amateur photographer, helped select the photos and wrote an introduction to the book.
“Through Hold Still, I wanted to use the power of photography to create a lasting record of what we were all experiencing,” she writes. “When we look back at the Covid-19 pandemic in decades to come, we will think of the challenges we all faced ... but we will also remember the positives: the incredible acts of kindness, the helpers and heroes who emerged from all walks of life and how together we adapted to a new normal.”
Her short video clip has been viewed by more than two million people. Nicholas Cullinan, director of the portrait gallery, has declared himself “astounded” at the response to the project.
A different side of Kate emerged in a video exchange last month with Jasmine Harrison, 21, who in February became the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic. It might easily have been a routine royal congratulatory quickie — jolly fine show, keep up the good work — except that Kate somehow turned it into a stirring eight-minute celebration of womanhood and willpower and dreaming and dedication.
Those with long memories may recall that Kate once embarked on a long-distance rowing project of her own. In 2007 she trained for a cross-Channel attempt as the helmswoman of a dragon boat with an all-women crew, but her then status as William’s girlfriend forced her to give up.
There was nothing remotely artificial about her admiration for Harrison’s achievement in rowing 3,000 miles. “Oh my God, I can’t get my head round 70 days at sea,” Kate laughs at one point. “What you’ve achieved will really change the perception of what is achievable ... I think you’re an inspiration to lots of young women out there.”
Kate ends by wishing her a safe flight back “and enjoy seeing your doggies in Yorkshire”. Harrison, whose Twitter tag is @rudderlymad, replies: “It’s been really nice to talk to you ... it was a surprise to get that call, I thought maybe I HAVE done something big.”
Junor says: “Kate is just really very good at it in a relaxed, friendly way. She’s not over the top, not ‘me, me, me’ at all. I think she’s absolutely coming into her prime now — she’s confident, she’s competent, and you don’t get the impression that she’s waiting for cameras to be there and it’s all a publicity stunt.”
All this might well be encouraging news for a family that seems to specialise in disaster mismanagement. After the transatlantic travails of the Duke of York and the ongoing agonies of the Sussexes, a duchess who gets things right might yet prove an invaluable asset.
At the same time, the burden of royal expectation has crushed many a free spirit. The closer Kate gets to becoming Queen, the more she may be expected to conform; to be careful with her words, to avoid spontaneous excursions in the middle of a health crisis. Can she really carry on being Kate, the increasingly daring duchess? Or must she prepare to be Catherine, our smiling but silent queen?
“I think what William and Kate have demonstrated is that you can have a much greater impact if you go large on a smaller number of causes,” says Bond, who like many royal watchers believes Kate will stick to non-controversial issues such as child development and mental health.
“She’s naturally engaged and comes across as genuine because she is genuinely interested in the topics she has espoused,” Bond adds. “I think she’ll be wise enough to stick to issues quite specific to her personality and knowledge.”
Junor notes that Kate may have learnt an important lesson from Diana, whose popularity began to outstrip her husband’s. “Charles was Prince of Wales and not used to having the limelight taken from him,” she says. “That caused huge problems. Kate is being very careful to ensure she doesn’t outstrip William. She is not on an ego trip, and her head has not been turned by celebrity.”
Junor concluded: “Kate is a working woman doing a job. She didn’t leave the human race when she joined Planet Windsor.”
**adds Brooklyn bridge to shopping list**
