For so many of us, it is difficult to avoid the haunting comparison. When willowy Kate Middleton goes walkabout wearing an elegant suit and that optimistic smile, it’s the woman who would have been her mother-in-law who springs disconcertingly to mind.
Diana was, of course, the last beautiful young woman to marry an heir to the throne — precipitating a fashion fever and thousands of young girls’ dreams of wearing a puff-ball dress as they were swept off their feet by their prince.
Just like Diana before her marriage, Kate Middleton can start a trend in minutes. This time, it’s royal blue and fitted tweed rather than knickerbockers and pie-crust collars.
Backwards glance: It's difficult to avoid haunting comparisons between Kate Middleton (right) and William's mother, Diana, pictured shortly after her engagement to Prince Charles
Like Diana, Kate seems to be a natural at meeting ‘ordinary’ people. She has happily flipped pancakes in Belfast, and christened a lifeboat with champagne in Anglesey. These appearances have been deemed ‘triumphs’ by Palace aides.
Certainly, with her striking looks and personable manner, Kate is a hit with the public; and yet I sense that Britain is not as gripped by joyous wedding anticipation as the monarchy and the British Establishment might wish.
Is it because the sad life and untimely death of Diana disabused us for ever of the notion of royal fairytales? Certainly, if anyone did still believe in them, that was shattered by the follow-up collapse of Prince Andrew and Fergie’s marriage.
The truth is that Charles and Diana’s was a wedding that made fools of us all: an intoxicating charade, a marriage masquerading as a love match when, on one side at least, it was nothing of the sort.
We later discovered, in painful detail, that the glamorous do-gooding and jet-setting life of the world’s favourite cover-girl masked inner turmoil and profound isolation.
The truth is that Charles and Diana’s was a wedding that made fools of us all: an intoxicating charade, a marriage masquerading as a love match when, on one side at least, it was nothing of the sort.
After her shocking death, the outpouring of public sympathy for Princes William and Harry was on a scale unimaginable for the normally uptight British. This was then followed by national queasiness over the mass mawkishness of the grief itself.
So no wonder we don’t quite know how to react to this very modern royal romance. The spectre of Diana’s lonely anguish and wavering self-esteem is still fresh in our minds.
It doesn’t help that Kate wears Diana’s ring. It also doesn’t help that as Kate prepares to be married in front of at least a billion people and enters the Royal goldfish bowl, her weight loss and slightly nervous appearance make us all anxious on her behalf. We feel as protective of her as we felt of William and Harry after their mother’s death.
Whether the Palace shares these qualms is another matter.
Of course, it is quite understandable that they are delighted by Kate’s popularity. After all, as hugely respected as she is, the Queen was 85 on Thursday, and Philip is about to turn 90. They will be well aware that the hopes of the monarchy —so tarnished by Prince Andrew’s unedifying activities — rest on the slight shoulders of a 29-year-old middle-class girl.
Which is why I so worry that the expectations being placed on Kate by courtiers — who one hopes would have learned a lesson from the Diana debacle — are simply too great.
Actress Emma Watson is no stranger to the prying attentions of the public after finding early fame in the Harry Potter films, but even she said last week that she wouldn’t be able to cope with the attention Kate Middleton is getting.
‘Poor girl, that must be an incredible amount of pressure … it must be intense,’ she sympathised.
Sham: While we all wanted to believe in the fairytale wedding of Charles and Diana, it actually made fools of us all
Pre-wedding weight loss is rarely significant: most brides lose at least half a stone before their big day. I have seen more than one corset gaping loosely on a bride’s suddenly skinny frame.
‘Diana went down two dress sizes in the three months before her wedding,’ says Elizabeth Emmanuel, who made Diana’s gown. ‘I did note how slim Kate was looking.’
Kate, it must be stressed, is marrying in altogether happier circumstances than Diana. She is around the same age as her husband-to-be, and ten years older than Diana was when she married. Kate has known her prince for nearly ten years; there is no third person in their relationship; and no one doubts that theirs is a love match and he will be her greatest support.
Equally, unlike Diana, whose mother famously bolted, Kate is a girl from a stable background who seems to be blessed with a tough middle-class resilience.
The flipside of the ‘Waity Katie’ jibes is that she seems to possess great steel, even when she and William broke up for a while.
Diana’s fragility and self-obsession was one of the reasons her life turned into a compelling drama: you simply never knew what she would do next.
Conversely, Diana’s fragility and self-obsession was one of the reasons her life turned into a compelling drama: you simply never knew what she would do next.
Claudia Bradby, a jewellery designer who worked with Kate Middleton at Jigsaw Junior (and whose ITN journalist husband Tom conducted the Royal couple’s first interview), certainly thinks Kate is a good fit for life at the palace.
‘I found her charming and really rather impressive: focused, creative, thoughtful and kind. The Royal Family is very lucky to have her.’
Another key factor in Kate’s favour is that William is a charismatic head-turner himself. While Charles was said to feel excluded by, and envious of, the excitement that followed his bride, there is a sense that the public won’t mind which one they get on a walk-about — Kate and William offer equal allure.
And despite her middle-class background, Kate has received more royal training than the aristocratic Diana. She is familiar with the Royal milieu, having already swum in its waters for years.
A palace source said: ‘She is well-known to the family and has spent time at the Queen’s private residences, as well as those of the Prince of Wales, which will have given her an insight into what happens in these surroundings away from the public eye.’
Equal partnership: Kate has so much more in common with William than Diana ever had with Prince Charles
It is also to her advantage that, unlike Diana, Kate is not marrying the direct heir to the throne. Her initial schedule will be lighter than Diana’s, particularly while William is still in the services.
The Royals are also deeply aware that in those difficult times they did not supply enough support to Diana, who for years after the break-up was the victim of vicious smears by Charles’s camp. One royal insider claims that help did exist for Diana, but that she chose not to take it.
While Kate will have no shortage of police protection, and advice on diplomatic and constitutional matters, it is on the pastoral side that the Palace has always stumbled. And indeed, behind the scenes, it’s not all quite as relaxed as courtiers like to suggest.
This is a family, after all, ruled by stiff and unyielding conventions. Kate’s parents have only this week met the Queen, and even their daughter can’t see Her Majesty without an appointment.
Full of confidence: Kate is ten years older than Diana was on her wedding day
And for all the careful planning and team assembling, there is another obstacle to pre-nuptial bonhomie. Around William and Kate’s set, an atmosphere of paranoia and secrecy has grown up which sits uncomfortably next to the customary exuberance and openness of a wedding.
Several members of the Beaufort Hunt are going, but they won’t discuss it in front of non-invitees. Guests report that they have been told — some claim in writing — not to discuss their attendance with anyone.
Certainly, the calculated way in which information — about cake-makers, wedding music, Kate’s confirmation — has been released can seem rather manipulative. And as for the speculation over Kate’s dress, no one can remember a time when the name of the designer was kept so tantalisingly secret.
‘Undoubtedly, it’s much more media-orientated now,’ says Lindka Cierach, who designed Fergie’s wedding dress.
Behind the wedding secrecy lies one key factor: Prince William’s ambivalence towards the media. Once hostile, he has now reluctantly accepted it as a necessity. However, any friends of the couple who have even been suspected of being leaky have been dropped.
The Palace says that the Royal Family have three functions; to support the Queen, to unite communities, and to cast a spotlight on good causes. All of those require media assistance — but that doesn’t mean William enjoys having it. But so far, Kate is responding to the media brilliantly.
‘The dynamic is that Kate is prepared to listen and will do what she’s told,’ said a former Palace staffer. ‘I thought she did so well on her recent trips that it was almost eerie. In terms of how to be a member of the Royal Family, the best people to advise are the Royal Family themselves, and particularly Prince William. He guided her on recent trips, as you can see, and does a lot more in private.’
Another former aide adds: ‘Camilla will have told her to keep her head down and play the long game, as she did; although if anyone can match Camilla in successfully playing the long game, it’s Kate.
‘The trick, thus far, seems to be to make occasional appearances, then lie fallow for a while, which is what Diana used to do. Charles used to rush around all the time trying to justify his own existence, until people stopped paying attention.’
And interior designer and socialite Nicky Haslam says Kate has her priorities straight. ‘She is nicely dressed but she shouldn’t be a fashion icon. She doesn’t want to be a clothes-horse like Jackie Onassis was.’
Haslam points out that the motto of the Waleses is ‘Ich Dien’ — ‘I Serve’. ‘Kate is more intelligent than the other recent Royal brides, so she’ll quickly learn to do this beautifully. She will be a leveller.
‘Dignity is all that really matters. It’s about pride of bearing. I’ve come to realise that her strength is that she has that unflappable quality the Queen has.’
If Haslam is right, and this future Queen has more in commmon with our monarch than with Diana, then the nation’s pre-wedding anxieties will turn out to be unjustified.
I just hope that the courtiers who so catastrophically mishandled Princess Diana have, by now, really learnt their lesson.
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