The Kate Middleton Effect: How Prince William's Wife Changed the Royal Family Forever
Prince William could never imagine at 28 that the woman he was engaged to would be the one responsible for changing the royal family forever.
It has been almost seven years since that day and the House of Windsor has radically changed. The traditional pomp still exists, but alongside it now there are also an unprecedented number of emotional confessions, the kinds of things the royal family had always avoided.
There is no doubt that Kate Middleton is the root of this fundamental change.
The evidence was especially clear a few weeks ago when William and Harry admitted in a spontaneous video the true inspiration behind their most ambitious project to date, the mental health charity Heads Together.
"It was your idea, I think," William said, pointing at Kate.
"It was your idea," Harry said too.
"It was a whole idea, wasn't it?" Kate replied.
Heads Together is very different from the dozens of other causes the royal trio supports because it focuses on something very close to them: the devastation they felt when they lost their mother in a car accident in Paris in 1997.
Despite the fact that the royal family had always been perceived as untouchable, almost sacred, lately there has been a change: William, Kate and Harry do what they can to highlight what we have in common with them, more than the differences. They want to break down the barriers between them and us.
Princess Diana began with the emotional education of her children, exposing them to poverty and others less fortunate than themselves. But the transformation happened when William started college at St. Andrews. There he met a completely new environment, alien to the privileged schools where he had studied. He mingled with ordinary people and, for the first time, with girls.
Will and Kate crossed paths when they were placed in the same dormitories (she later admitted that when they were first introduced she was very embarrassed). It can hardly be said that she was poor, she comes from a wealthy family, the product of a party organization business. But she didn't look like her friends at Eton, most of them with royal ancestry.
Friendship came first, then romance, allowing her to move on after the loss of her mother. We now know that neither William nor Harry dealt with Diana's death immediately after it occurred. Without resorting to help, the family concentrated on preparing the boys for their public lives. But thanks to Middleton, William got to know what a normal life felt like.
They frequently ran away to her parents' house, to bars and Sunday barbecues. It was a revealing moment for William: "Kate is very, very close to her family," he said in a 2010 interview on the occasion of their engagement. "I feel like part of them." In that interview, Kate was the first to admit that she was uncomfortable with the idea of being queen. "It's challenging. I hope to do it my way. William is a great teacher, he will help me along the way," he said then.
Despite her obvious discomfort with public speaking, what we did not expect at the time is how Kate's humble origins were to transform the royal family in an indelible way. It can be seen in the way Princess Diana's children have begun to reveal the sadness they felt after their mother's death, in contrast to the public image of William and Harry, at 15 and 12, accompanying the his mother's coffin at the funeral.
The idea that the two princes had to fulfill such a public role amid such private sadness was inconceivable to many. But it was an obligation for the Windsors to present an image of normalcy.
THE ROYALS> Wow! You won't believe how much Kate Middleton has spent on clothes so far this year.
Now, in 2017, the last thing William and Harry want to hide is the extent of the pain they went through. Kate has taught them that if they confront pain, they can make a huge difference in people's lives. Kate explained in a Heads Together video that we are all the same, whether we are royalty or not, "Whether it is homeless, military, addicted, or grieving, there is an undertone to the mental health".
"The idea that other people's lives are perfect is always sold," added Harry. "That's the problem, if you think that other people's lives are perfect, then there must be something wrong with me."
There's a reason Kate will always be Kate to us, despite her royal titles: she reminds us that thanks to her upbringing she has been able to break the barrier that separates us from royalty. And because of that, the royal family has never been more popular, adored, and understood.
By encouraging William and Harry to show their vulnerability, to be honest about their sad past, and to use that for good, Kate has helped save House of Windsor from becoming irrelevant and anachronistic. It has given them more meaning than ever, helping them consolidate their legacy for centuries to come.
