A 49-second clip of Kate Middleton reveals exactly where Meghan Markle went wrong in her royal duties. Photo / Twitter
OPINION:
It’s pretty amazing what you can achieve in 49 seconds, far less time than it would take to make a proper cup of tea, tie a Windsor knot or hide Sarah, Duchess of York’s latest Mills & Boon potboiler on your bookshelf. (She has two of these and counting in case you are into literary masochism.)
However, Kate, Princess of Wales is no ordinary person and in exactly 49 seconds this week she managed to single-handedly remind the world that she has saved, and continues to save, the monarchy.
Hyperbolic? Moi?
The moment came outside Colham Manor Children’s Centre in Hillingdon, which she was visiting in her role as patron of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, exactly the sort of engagement that is Kate’s bread and butter. (Maternal support, mental health and Kate wearing a $61 dress from fast fashion chain Mango? You’ve won the Princess of Wales bingo!)
But as she arrived at the west London centre, the 40-year-old deviated from the very well-worn script for these sorts of outings (smile, shake hands, accept bouquet, cuddle baby, send press into paroxysms that she might have another child, smile, get back into a Range Rover), the princess made an unplanned stop to say hello to a little boy, Akeem, 3.
What followed was shared by Rhiannon Mills, Sky News’ Royal Correspondent, and would have to melt even the stoniest of hearts or make even the staunchest of republicans thaw just a teensy tiny bit.
It’s not everyday you get a poppy from a Princess 😊 Akeem who’s 3 was very chatty when Kate unexpectedly stopped to say hello at a maternity mental health visit so she gave him her remembrance poppy. Thanks Liberty from Colham Manor primary and Akeem’s mum for letting me share pic.twitter.com/ykP1wyujtf
— Rhiannon Mills (@SkyRhiannon) November 9, 2022
After Akeem asked her her name, the Princess simply said, “My name is Catherine,” and then, gesturing at her Remembrance Day poppy pinned to her coat, asked him, “Have you got a poppy? Would you like mine? You can have my poppy. Shall I see if I can get this out?”
At which point she went into Sensible Parent mode, removing the pin and asking the little boy: “Is your teacher here or your mummy? Is your mummy here? Shall I give her the pin in case she wants it?”
On paper this all might sound a bit dull, but the video proves that this is exactly the sort of moment that royal aides must fantasise about – the perfect alchemy of a member of the House of Windsor on sparkling, perfect form; the awesome power of social media and a very cute child thrown into the mix.
It was, quite simply, adorable and heart-melting.
But, once everyone has stopped making “awww …” sounds, let’s consider what this moment really drives home, and that is; how stuffed the royal family would be without Kate.
Think about it. Imagine, just for a moment, that Prince William had picked some other university girlfriend, say some aristocrat with a triple-barrelled surname, a burning passion for all things equine and whose family could trace their lineage back to the Doomsday Book, to be his wife. Sure, she’d probably turn up and shake hands with a certain stolid dependability like a certain new Queen we all know, but she would not have that elusive, rare star quality that Kate does.
Imagine if the future of the monarchy in Britain rested solely on the shoulders of King Charles, Queen Camilla, William and the ever-dwindling posse of slightly pallid royal relations who round out the roster of family’s working members. Buckingham Palace’s days would be so obviously numbered that London mayor Sadiq Khan could start to get planners in to work out how to turn Clarence House into a drop-in centre for the elderly.
Because the Princess of Wales might not have forebears who fought for the Roundheads or have been brought up to know which fork to use to eat partridge, but she has the same magic dust and natural ability to connect with people as her late mother-in-law Diana.
If you think about it, and I have spent far too much time doing so, if Kate was not on the scene, if William has not chosen so well, the monarchy would be more than a bit f***ed.
That’s because support for the monarchy is not just built on the public’s cool-headed intellectual assessment of the institution’s benefits to the national good but on an emotional response. What keeps the palace afloat is the adoration and affection they engender, the sort of devotion and support that explains why tens and tens of thousands of people gave up their weekend to throng the streets of London for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this year. (I know, it feels like a lifetime ago.)
And Kate? She can deliver this most precious commodity by the truckload.
There is also something else interesting to note in this week’s Kate/Akeem video.
This tender, spontaneous moment was filmed by Mills and a small handful of smartphone-wielding parents, and was not a moment undertaken in front of a wall of Fleet Street snappers on step ladders. The only proper photo agency shot of this interaction came from Getty and was taken from a way away. Which is to say, this was not some calculating publicity ploy.
What this video perfectly encapsulates is that Kate not only intrinsically understands the job – to charm the public one at a time, to bend hearts and minds towards the monarchy day in and day out, and that this is a lifelong marathon of a task – but she’s a woman who genuinely seems to enjoy what she does.
No one short of Meryl Streep could bung it on so convincingly.
Which brings us to the obvious comparison here with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Unlike Kate, who had a nearly decade-long run-up to royal-dom, the former Suits star went from being a professional to a palace foot soldier at breakneck speed. It was a transition that never really stuck.
Now, I do not for a second think this had anything to do with Meghan not being committed or passionate or hardworking enough. The Duchess is clearly a woman of immense zeal, diligence and smarts.
Rather, to understand why things went off the rails, partially at least, you need to consider that the business of royalty is less about basking in wave after wave of public adoration and more about the repetitive graft of hand-shaking. (Oddly enough, the drudgery of royalty has never gotten the Princess Diaries treatment.)
Not only did the Duchess of Sussex not have anywhere near the same lead-time as Kate to come to truly understand the job she was signing up for but, as an American, she did not grow up with the same innate understanding of or relationship to the monarchy as anyone in the UK or Australia. I once read a description that many in the US view the royal family as like “nationalised Kardashians”, which is to say celebrity relics that are still somehow part of the constitutional architecture of Britain. But, I reckon the reality is that they are much more like civil servants (albeit ones who live in palaces) who are required to get up, day after day, and prove their worth over and over again.
Understanding that element of royalty was something that Meghan, based on two recent books, is said to have struggled with.
In Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers she writes that during the Duchess and husband Prince Harry’s (outwardly) highly successfully tour of Australia and the South Pacific in 2018, “she apparently hated every second of it” and, as a former Palace employee told Brown, “found the itinerary of engagements ‘pointless’”.
“Instead of being excited when thousands of people showed up at the Opera House, it was very much like, ‘What’s the purpose? I don’t understand this,’” the employee told Brown.
Valentine Low, in his recent Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind The Crown, says of the same tour: “Although she enjoyed the attention, Meghan failed to understand the point of all those walkabouts, shaking hands with countless strangers. According to several members of staff, she was heard to say on at least one occasion: ‘I can’t believe I’m not getting paid for this.’”
Kate, however, clearly does “understand” and is up for the gig, as this Akeem moment proves.
At the time of writing, Mills’ video had been viewed more than 655,000 times and had more than 30,000 likes in under 12 hours. Arise the “queen of people’s hearts”, as Diana famously once described herself. All that’s left now is for someone to go and explain to the King what Twitter is.
Daniela Elser is writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
A live cook-off featured ox heart, wapiti, wild boar and plenty of edible wildlife.