Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are expecting their first child, and amassing a vast collection of stuffed animals in Australia. Princess Eugenie married Jack Brooksbank in glorious, expectation-exceeding high fashion . . . while Camilla missed their wedding to mingle with a taxidermic deer. This is all fine and jolly good but, for some longtime royal devotees, one underlying existential question always remains: what does it all mean for Kate Middleton?
After a roughly six-month maternity leave—her longest ever—following the birth of Prince Louis in April, the Duchess of Cambridge returned to work (yes, she does work) earlier this month with a new young royal order taking shape. Even if you categorically reject the sexist tabloid drivel pitting Kate and Meghan against each other and instead imagine them gossiping and plotting world domination behind closed Palace doors, Meghan’s arrival in the royal family does mean changes for the Windsors, and for Kate. With four unique and wildly famous figures—Kate, William, Meghan and Harry—now in the fold, what will Kate’s particular role be?
“It’s a huge turning point,” said Susan E. Kelley, the owner, editor, and Middletonian obsessive behind What Kate Wore. “I think this is where Kate gets to make her mark.”
Since bursting back on to the scene in early October, Kate has seemingly displayed a newfound sense of confidence. Here, she was cracking up with impish children at a “wildlife garden” and “boldly taking the brush” to contribute to a painting in progress at the inaugural Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit in London with Prince William. At Eugenie’s wedding, Kate casually rested her hand on her husband’s upper thigh in Windsor Castle—hardly scandalous, but a rare sign of P.D.A. from the more formal couple. Kate’s post-maternity-leave comeback hit another high note at her first solo appearance as royal patron of the Photography Centre at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where she emerged, glowing and glamorous, in one of the most fashion-forward dresses of her career: a tweed Erdem with an asymmetrical neckline plucked from the Spring 2018 collection.
And then, as if to put all doubts aside, she arrived to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday night for a state dinner in a Cinderella blue Alexander McQueen gown and enough royal regalia to forever shut down that famous Coco Chanel quote about taking off one accessory before you leave the house. Kate traded her traditional “hatband” for the Lover’s Knot tiara (which was oft-worn by Princess Diana), while also confidently pulling off Queen Alexandra’s pearl-and-diamond wedding necklace (or parure), and the Royal Family Order brooch (made with glass instead of ivory, in keeping with her husband’s commitment to elephant conservation).
“After that long break, she has certainly come back with a bang,” said Kaitlin Menza, co-host of the Royally Obsessed podcast. “I think that’s what she’s trying to convey: ‘I’m back, baby.’”
It was all so pleasantly surprising for a duchess who tends to favor prim shift dresses and her trusty nude L.K. Bennett Sledges, who is known to be on the shy and sensible side.
“A couple of years ago, you might still have seen her being a little bit timid,” Kelley said. “Now, she seems like she’s in a more take-charge position. I’m beginning to see the person who’s going to be the queen emerging.”
After seven years of marriage, three children, multiple royal tours, and countless walkabouts, Kate is now fully a senior royal within the Firm, no longer the “commoner” who married into the family but the future Queen Consort and mother of the future King. The role of princess-in-training has been passed on to Meghan—who, as a former actress and longtime humanitarian, is already perfectly comfortable in the public eye, but is just getting started with her own royal family and working with her chosen causes, including girls’ education. Kate has graduated to an unspoken Level Two, where she is more free to pursue her own passions—including mental-health issues, underprivileged children, and art—in a more targeted way.
“She found her role as a working member of the royal family through bringing up her own children and realizing what’s important to her,” said ABC News royal commentator Omid Scobie, who has closely covered Kate and Prince William and is currently reporting from Meghan and Prince Harry’s tour. “One of the things that we’ll see her really focusing on for the months ahead is working to help support disadvantaged children in the U.K. . . . Kate has this plan in place to really work with a number of organizations, including the Royal Foundation.”
And though she’s far from a stay-at-home mom, Kate’s priority for years to come will be her children—Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and wee Prince Louis. “She’s a mother, first and foremost. Her children are going to be her priority while they are young, and she will juggle her work commitments around the kids,” said Vanity Fair’s royal correspondent Katie Nicholl. “The Duchess of Cambridge has been labeled work-shy in the past. But, actually, she’s taken on just a few patronages, things where she’s really made a difference. Early intervention with young children in primary schools, putting mental health on the map with Heads Together, was her idea. She’s been very instrumental."
Nicholl also dismisses tabloid speculation about a rivalry between Kate and Meghan, and believes Kate is “quite grateful” to Meghan for relieving her of some of the relentless scrutiny and spotlight she has gone to great pains to avoid (see: spending long stretches at the family country home, Anmer Hall).
“People who are often saying ‘Well, is she jealous of Meghan?’ She’s really not. Kate is happier in her life now than she ever has been. She has everything she wants. She has William, she has three beautiful children . . . she is where she always wanted to be,” Nicholl said. “The fact that there is a new glamorous sister-in-law in tow is not going to worry her one bit. I think Meghan came at the right time for her, because it was at a time when Kate wanted to step out of the spotlight.”
And while royal reporters say the two women—a sporty Brit and a California-bred former American actress—have had little in common, that will likely change now that Meghan is pregnant with her first child. “This baby will no doubt bring Kate and Meghan even closer,” said Scobie. “With them both bringing up children on the grounds of Kensington Palace, the children will no doubt become very close, just like we saw with William, Harry, Beatrice, and Eugenie when they were growing up. I can definitely see the two duchesses taking their youngest ones on playdates together.” Adds Nicholl: “If they’re clever, both of them, they will make sure this is a relationship that works. They could and should be great allies.”
There is also a lot of potential power in their differences. Meghan is, simply, the hipper and edgier princess, a royal who identifies proudly as a feminist in her official bio and name-checked #MeToo during that much-lauded “Fab Four” appearance at the Royal Foundation forum in February. By comparison, Kate can appear staid and conservative, from her clothing choices to her restraint in public speeches—two forces that combined in February, when she and William attended the BAFTA Awards at the height of the #MeToo red carpet protests. Most women on the carpet wore black; Kate wore dark green, albeit with a black sash that seemed like a nod of its own.
“I think it was hugely disappointing—to me, and plenty of other women around the world—when Kate didn’t wear black to the BAFTAs in February to show solidarity with the #MeToo movement, as so many others did,” Menza said.
It’s not hard to imagine that Meghan might have handled that night differently. But by virtue of their positions in the royal family, Kate and Meghan will always be different, and it’s unfair to both of them to expect otherwise. Kate is married to the future king, and is the mother of another future king, while Meghan is wed to the famous sixth-in-line “spare.” Harry and Meghan “can have so much more freedom,” said Kelley—such as jetting to Amsterdam for the opening of a new Soho House—“to do things that probably wouldn’t be appropriate for the future queen to do.”
And yet, Kate wields a quiet power, in part precisely because she is apolitical in a deeply divisive Brexit era. “In a period of considerable instability, she is a very calming influence, a very calming image,” said Peter York, co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook. “The royal family is immaculate in the way they pull together people by being above basic politics. They’re terribly important symbolically.”
Much like the Queen, who has actively handed over many of her duties to younger royals in recent years, Kate is a constant. In what is a remarkable achievement in the age of social media, she has hardly made a misstep since becoming world-famous as a college student at St. Andrews in 2002, and certainly not since marrying into the royal family in 2011. From sartorial diplomacy and bright smiles on royal tours to Canada and India and Australia to dutifully keeping up engagements during three pregnancies and somewhat miraculously showcasing her bundled babies outside the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital mere hours post-birth, Kate has been a reliable, consistent working royal, a non-controversial touchstone for women in the U.K. and across the world who have shared their life milestones alongside her—growing up, getting married, starting a family, and trying to make an impact in her community . . . all while re-wearing the same outfit now and again.
“This is somebody who is very, very serious about raising her children and doing the appropriate, right thing,” said Kelley. “William and Kate, in many ways, represent the stability, the going forward, in a very quiet, methodical fashion.”
And in her consistent, increasingly confident presence, Kate appears to be preparing for the role she will play for decades to come. “If you look at Queen Elizabeth, she has that strength without really saying much, that has held this country together through some of the the fiercest wars and times that we’ve faced,” said Scobie. “I think Kate has the ability to do the same.”
