The biography was published on August 1, 2024 “Catherine. The Princess of Wales” (Rizzoli), written by royal expert Robert Jobson. The book traces Kate’s life, challenges and character, recounting, through the figure of the princess, also the daily life of the British royal family. A positive and flattering portrait of the future Queen emerges, described as an attentive, moderate, serious and responsible woman, as well as fascinating. Indeed, the work would almost seem like a response to “Spare”, Prince Harry’s memoir. If he threw poisoned darts against the Crown on every page, the biography written by Jobson would reconstruct the image of the monarchy also starting from the ashes left by the duke.
“Diplomatic and tenacious”
“If (Kate) had been born fifty years earlier, her story would have been unthinkable, the stuff of fairy tales”wrote Robert Jobson, commenting on Kate’s existential journey, from bourgeois to future Queen of England. In his book “Catherine. The Princess of Wales” the royal expert highlighted the qualities that helped Kate become the beloved princess she is today: “Behind that bright smile…is a strong-willed woman with a brilliant intelligence and tenacious determination.” The temper, however, would be somehow mitigated by a calm and “from the innate” Kate’s penchant for diplomacy, the calm but unstoppable search for mediation, for the rational solution to family conflicts: she would have “a calming effect” on the whole family, especially on Prince William, famous for his supposedly irascible character. Jobson himself, already in the book Charles III. The Man and The Monarch Revealed” (2023), inserted the comment of an insider who had revealed: “(Prince William) can be a difficult (person)…He is…determined and that can make him impatient.” Furthermore “sometimes (the prince) is subject to outbursts of anger that only Kate can calm down.”
Between William and Charles
Not only would Kate be able to soften the more rigid traits of her husband’s personality, but she would also have developed the ability to mediate between William and Charles III. In fact, father and son are often on different tracks regarding issues concerning the monarchy. For example, in his biography, Jobson said that William wanted his entire family to travel on a single helicopter, a choice strongly discouraged by protocol for safety reasons: what would happen if, in the event of an accident, the Crown lost all its heirs? Charles, furious with his firstborn, asked Queen Elizabeth to intervene and forced William to sign a document in which he renounced his intention. Kate was able to mitigate the storms of anger between her husband and father-in-law. “(The princess) paved the way for William and his father to have a better relationship than they had in the past”wrote Jobson.
The King “loves Kate”
Thanks to Kate, the times when, as the author declared in his work dedicated to King Charles, William could become “irascible” during the confrontations with his father, unleashing an uproar at court: “(The sovereign) has a temper, but he doesn’t go on forever. He may get frustrated and explode, but then, in an instant, it’s all forgotten. William rarely forgets.” His Majesty would be grateful to his daughter-in-law for “the good influence” which he has on the court, Jobson underlined in his work on Kate’s life. “He loves her and sincerely appreciates everything she does”the effort put in to keep the family and the monarchy together. Kate would reciprocate this affection and would demonstrate it by addressing her father-in-law with the tender name of “grampa”.
The Farewell Phone Call
Kate would be “emotionally mature”brought to “to consider both sides of a dispute.” It may be that this is a natural gift, as Jobson claims, but it cannot be ruled out that the princess has refined this ability over time and with experiences. Even negative ones, such as the serious argument she had with William during Easter 2007 and recounted in the book “Catherine. The Princess of Wales”: “In an emotionally charged thirty-minute phone conversation the couple admitted they were not on the same page…” William reportedly left Kate over the phone, claiming that they both needed to go away and look for “a little space” For “finding their way”According to Jobson’s reconstruction, after that clarification the prince went with his friends to the Mahiki nightclub in Mayfair and, after drinking a few too many glasses of Dom Perignon, shouted in front of everyone: “I am free!”. The princes had become engaged during their studies at St. Andrews, in Scotland, but in reality their first meeting dates back to the years when William attended Eton and Kate attended Marlborough College.
“A stronger person”
The princess did not stand by and watch, much less despair. She would really have looked for that. “space” that the prince had told her about while traveling and starting a frenetic social life. A total change, a sign of willpower that would not have left William indifferent. After several attempts at reconciliation, Jobson said, Kate accepted an invitation from her ex-boyfriend to a costume party on June 9, 2007. During that evening, love between the two was rekindled. In the interview given on the occasion of their engagement and quoted by People, the Princess Catherine she remembered those three months away from William like this, highlighting how much they helped her grow: “I wasn’t very happy at the time, but it actually made me a stronger person…I really appreciated that time for me.”
That sentence about Archie’s skin color
“The entire family is saddened…The issues raised, particularly those regarding race, are concerning. While some accounts may vary, they are taken very seriously and the family will address them privately…” This is how Buckingham Palace responded, in an official statement, to the accusations of racism made by Harry And Megan in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in March 2021. The Duchess of Sussex accused the royals of making discriminatory comments about Archie’s skin color. Neither she nor Harry would ever name the alleged perpetrator, sparking a sort of tabloid witch hunt that involved Charles III, Kate and even Princess Anne. In particular, the passage “recollections may vary”, “reconstructions may vary”initially attributed to Queen Elizabeth. According to Robert Jobson, however, the intuition of this phrase would have been Kate’s, who would never have truly accepted Meghan’s presence at court. Those three words in English would have contained all the Princess’s hatred for the Sussexes’ resignation in 2020, but also her firm will to subtly deny the Duchess to protect the Crown from a scandal.
Lady Diana’s Jewels
Between the Duchess of Sussex and the Prince William things would have gone even worse. We know that the heir to the throne would have advised his brother to “go slow” with Meghan, to think carefully about the idea of marriage. The situation would have precipitated when Harry began wedding preparations and chose William as his best man, Jobson said. The eldest son of Charles and Diana would have been so wary of Meghan and so opposed to the royal wedding that he asked for an audience with Queen Elizabeth to make a surprising request: to prohibit his future sister-in-law from wearing Lady Diana’s jewels. It didn’t matter that Kate was showing off thesapphire engagement ring of the late princess. William’s wish was not granted, as Markle has been wearing her mother-in-law’s jewels for years. In this regard, it seems that during the preparations for the royal wedding, Meghan had her eye on the Spencer Tiara, the jewel that Lady Diana wore on her wedding day, July 29, 1981. An anecdote that enriches the now famous “Tiara-Gate”, the mystery of the selection of Meghan’s wedding tiara and her alleged whims that would have made even Queen Elizabeth lose her patience, who would have thundered: “Meghan will wear the tiara that I will give her”. Ultimately the choice fell on Queen Mary’s Diamond Bandeau Tiara, but the riddle has never been solved.
The Fear of Becoming Princess of Wales
Kate Middleton she would not have accepted the title of Princess of Wales lightly. Indeed, in the biography dedicated to her it is made clear that the princess would have preferred the title of Duchess of Cornwall. It would not have been only the fear of comparison with Lady Diana that worried her. After all, that type of comparison had accompanied her since her arrival at court, although it was a source of enormous pressure and expectations. It seems that Kate wanted to avoid reawakening the pain of the English, for whom the title of Princess of Wales was now inextricably linked to Diana, and any possible popular intolerance towards her (Camilla had also renounced it for the same reason, but her case was completely different). In the end Kate would have accepted the honor and the burden of becoming Princess of Wales for the affection and respect she feels towards Charles III.
The Death of Queen Elizabeth
In his biography Jobson claims that the Queen Elizabeth she would have died because of a tumor that in recent times would have made her almost blind. Not for “advanced age”as reported, instead, on the death certificate. Doubts about it had already been expressed immediately after the death of the sovereign. In fact, the publication, by the National Records of Scotland, of the document certifying the death of the Queen took place only on 29 September 2022: a delay that the tabloids deemed inexplicable and which gave rise to numerous conspiracy theories. In any case, the theory according to which Elizabeth died of cancer has already been proposed by the expert Gyles Brandreth in his book “Elizabeth. An Intimate Portrait” (December 2022): “I had heard that the Queen had a form of myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, which would explain the tiredness, weight loss and ‘mobility problems’ that were so often talked about during the last year of her life… The Queen was always discreet and never said more than was absolutely necessary… She knew her time was up, but she accepted it willingly.”
The Princess Who Studied Arabic
In the book Jobson also reported some lighter anecdotes about the life of the future Queen of England. We know well, also thanks to the biographical notes reported on the website of the royal familythat the princess spent part of her childhood in Amman, Jordan, where her father, Michael, worked as a manager for British Airways. The Middleton family moved there in May 1984, when Kate was just two years old, and stayed until September 1986. During their stay in Jordan, Kate attended Assahera Nursery School, one of the most expensive in the region, as told by Hello magazine. During that time, the former headmistress of the now-closed school, Sahera al-Nablusi, told The National News, Kate began to learn Arabic through conversation, songs, stories about the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the recitation of verses from the Koran.
In his book, Jobson returned to this part of the princess’s childhood, sometimes overlooked by the media, emphasizing her ability to study the Arabic language. This commitment would have been the prelude to the development of the princess’s methodical personality, through which she became, over the years, a model student and an impeccable royal.