The Duchess of Cambridge has paid her respects to Sarah Everard at Clapham Common in direct opposition of royal rules. Photo / Sky
The Duchess of Cambridge has paid her respects to Sarah Everard at Clapham Common in direct opposition of royal rules. Photo / Sky
OPINION:
The woman appeared in the crowd, dressed in an olive coat and black jeans. Hands in her pockets she stood, reading the tributes left to murdered woman Sarah Everard whose killing has provoked a national outcry over violence towards women in the UK. The woman lay daffodils before turningaway, head slightly bowed, quiet and introspective.
She seemed to largely go unnoticed.
That is all that the footage, captured by a person also in the crowd, shows – but the woman is one of the most recognisable faces in the world.
Over the weekend, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, joined the tens of thousands of women around the UK who took part in vigils after the kidnapping and killing of the 33-year-old marketing executive who disappeared after leaving a friend's home in southwest London.
The gatherings – one where police violently intervened to remove attendees – have gathered significant momentum and stoked righteous public outrage at the everyday fear women still live with.
The Duchess of Cambridge has paid her respects to Sarah Everard at Clapham Common in direct opposition of royal rules. Photo / Supplied
And there in their midst was their future queen who arrived unannounced, her appearance an off-duty outing which took the press wholly by surprise.
"She looked quite emotional," one fellow attendee has said. "She was just on her own. About 10 metres behind her there were two people following her. It wasn't obvious she had security with her."
At first glance, her appearance among those who had come to pay their respects to a woman whose life was cut tragically short could appear something of a cynical calculation, a swift and easy way to garner some good publicity after one of the most turbulent weeks in royal history for decades.
In the wake of Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex's, accusations of "The Firm's" cruelty and racism and a global outpouring of fury directed at Buckingham Palace, the presence of Kate on Clapham Common could be, superficially at least, viewed as a contrived, shrewd move to quickly curry some public favour, an opportunistic move to piggyback off an organic outpouring of public feeling for crudely selfish ends.
But that is a far too simplistic reading, rather the mum-of-three's participation is a landmark juncture in her royal career.
In fact, Kate has just broken one of the biggest, if not the biggest, rules of royal life, which is, do not enter the political fray.
Not only did she lay flowers but royal sources made it known that the Duchess "remembers what it felt like to walk around London at night before she got married". While these days she might be trailed everywhere she goes by a formidable team of gun-toting bodyguards, until she and William got engaged at the end of 2010 she had no formal protection. Until the age of 28, she was, for all intents and purposes, just another one of London's 4.5 million women for whom the threat of violence is all too real.
Have no doubt, Kate's appearance was a political statement – a loud, clear-cut political statement – made by a woman who has never, ever come within a country mile of anything even verging on "p" word.
This was Kate stepping into an emotional national conversation and making her voice heard, loud and clear. And in doing so, this was the first tantalising hint of rebellion we have ever seen from the queen-in-waiting.
Kate Middleton arrived much like any other mourner who came to pay their respects. Photo / Twitter
As the Telegraph has pointed out, the 39-year-old's decision to attend the vigil was remarkable because it is unprecedented for a member of the royal house of her stature to, wholly in a private capacity, take part in a moment such as this when she did not know the victim personally.
Her doing so was "arguably the most calculated attempt to move the dial of a major political issue since the Queen's famous 2014 intervention in the Scottish independence referendum."
What is also interesting is that Kate's appearance on Clapham Common could well have been in direct opposition to palace guidance. The possibility of critics seeing her appearance as a transparent grasping for some good PR could have meant, to the Telegraph, that her aides "may have advised the Duchess to stay at home".
That she took part in this vigil, potentially going against the advice of courtiers, is remarkable for a woman whose decade-long tenure as a member of the royal family has been wholly defined by a self-effacing obedience and deference to toeing the regal line.
There is something gloriously cheering about the notion of Kate, the habitual Good Girl, rather than following the terrible royal tradition of diffidence in the face of such an emotional public furore, shrugging off her fretting advisers and instead being guided by her own judgment and moral compass.
What the future queen has just achieved, by doing nothing more than simply appearing in public, is to show not only leadership and strength but also a powerful solidarity with her future female subjects.
Sarah Everard who missing in south London on the night of March 3. Her body was later found in woodland. Photo / Supplied
And to be frank, it is also about bloody time. It took the woman long enough.
In 2018, when countless attendees at the BAFTAs wore black in a show of support for the #MeToo movement, Kate demurred from lending her voice to the groundswell, instead wearing dark olive to the event. By turning up in drab green, the message was that she and the palace were far too afraid to voice any sort of opinion or take any sort of stance on a subject that carried with it even the faintest whiff of the political, even one that had garnered near universal support.
Those days are hopefully long gone. The Kate we saw this weekend is a woman ready to use her voice and her position with a new-found overtness.
Underlying all of this is the humanity of Kate joining in the tributes to Sarah Everard.
The royal family has time and again stood accused of callous indifference and cold-heartedness. If Kate (and William's) reign is one marked by a new-found commitment to bringing much needed humanity – and courage and compassion – to the business of monarchy then they could go a long, long way to doing their bit to ensure the institution's survival in the 21st century.
In short, they might just save the Crown if they can show the royal family has a beating heart.
In 1588, as the Spanish Armada amassed in the waters off what is now the UK, Elizabeth I famously left her bodyguards behind to walk among the thousands of troops preparing to defend the country. The power and symbolism of that moment – a queen in the midst of thousands of her subjects – echoes down through the centuries.
Later that same day, she delivered the most famous speech of her reign, declaring "I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too."
Kate has just proved that 433 years later, she truly has the heart – and head – of a queen too.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
