Queen Elizabeth is
reportedly learning from the “mistake” she made with her son Prince
Charles and his late ex-wife Princess Diana, and spending “a lot of time”
actively supporting her grandson Prince William’s marriage to Kate
Middleton.
Princess Diana’s
biographer Andrew Morton told OK! magazine that the monarch
views the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge “very much as the future” of England
and believes Charles will simply act as “interregnum,” like King Edward VII
before him, with the real “burden of monarchy” falling on the couple’s
shoulders. “The thing about Kate is the Queen was impressed she adored and
loved William for himself, not for his title.” Morton explained. “She spends a
lot more time supporting and nurturing the relationship between William and
Catherine than she did with Charles and Diana. It’s pretty clear she wasn’t
going to make that mistake again.”
The author went on to point
out that “Everything that happened in [Kate and William’s] relationship was
quite strategic, quite thought through, after a period of time.” He added, “In
the beginning, nobody in the royal household expected for a second that the
university romance with Catherine and William would continue for any time after
they graduated, like most college romances which disintegrate under the intense
scrutiny of jobs and geography.”
But from the beginning, Queen
Elizabeth has been a huge fan of the Duchess and was “practically skipping”
with joy the day she and Prince William finally tied the knot, according to
Morton. In an excerpt from this forthcoming book The Queen, the
author claims that the monarch saw their 2011 marriage as a real bright spot
after years of her children’s marriages failing and the death of Princess
Diana. “The Queen was positively playful on the day of her grandson’s nuptials,
‘practically skipping’ according to one observer, absolutely thrilled at the
way the public had reacted to the royal newlyweds,” Morton writes. “She had a
sense that the future of the Royal Family, her family, was now secure. The
monarchy was once again held in admiration and affection by the masses.”
And it’s not just Queen
Elizabeth who feels that Kate is up for the task of being Queen Consort, but
also the Duchess herself. In December of last year, an
insider told People that Kate is “flourishing” and
“really com[ing] into her own” as she and her husband take on more official
royal duties amid the monarch’s ongoing health issues and Prince
Harry and Meghan Markle stepping down from their roles as senior
royals in 2020.
