Catherine The Great Turns 41
As The Princess of Wales celebrates her birthday early next week, here is why I believe the United Kingdom is lucky to have its own 21st-century "Catherine The Great."
The reign of Catherine II of Russia was seen as Russia’s Golden Age. The Empress played a significant role in Russia’s political and social reform, including overseeing the educational transformation of the country, a cause close to her heart. Her thirty-four-year rule and everything she was able to accomplish established her nickname: “Catherine The Great.”
Now, over 200 years after the death of Empress Catherine, there is another woman with the same name but representing a different country and from a vastly different background who has proven to be great in her own right.
Invisible Strings
Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born on January 9th, 1982, in Reading, Bucklebury, to Michael and Carole Middleton. She lived an idyllic life in the countryside with a close-knit family that also includes a younger sister, Philippa Charlotte, and a brother, James William.
Unlike her husband and children, Catherine’s early life was lived far from the gaze of cameras. It was not until her early 20s that the public first heard the name “Kate Middleton.” From the moment Catherine was pictured with Prince William on the ski slopes in 2004, her life suddenly became not her own, although she would not be a public figure for years to come.
One of the things that the press hyper-fixated on is that Catherine is not blue-blooded and had no title nor any close familial connection to titled people. It is pretty ironically funny to go back and read old articles from the early years of her relationship with William and see reporters over and over again discount her as a future bride for their golden prince because of her background.
The press mainly took swipes at her mother, Carole, whose ancestors include miners. She was criticized for small little things even though she never spoke to the press while her daughter was dating the future king. If the press had only looked at Catherine’s paternal ancestry, perhaps they would have been more pleased.
Michael Middleton’s grandmother, Olive, was part of The Lupton Family from Leeds, who had connections to The Royal Family because of their societal position. The family name can be traced back to the sixteenth century, where we see a line of merchants, scholars, and ministers. The Lupton Family’s wealth started to accumulate in the late 1700s when they established Lumpton and Company, a wool manufacturing company, and Arthur Lupton inherited land through marriage.
By the early 19th century and into the 20th century, the Lupton Family had entered politics as well as involving themselves with some of the country’s top Universities. Eventually, one of the Lutpon daughters, Olive, inherited the family business, and upon their marriage in 1914, Richard Middleton also became a director of the Company. Richard and Olive’s younger son, Peter, studied at Oxford University and went on to become a Pilot. Peter married Valerie Glassborow and had four sons, the second of which was Michael Middleton, Catherine’s father.
Although Catherine’s distant familial connection to the royal family faded over time, this following tidbit would make anyone believe in soulmates! In the early 1960s, The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince William’s grandfather, embarked on a two-month tour of South America, and the pilot of his plane was none other than Peter Middleton. Being an experienced pilot himself, The Duke piloted 49 of 62 flights, with Peter often being his co-pilot. At the end of the tour, Prince Philip sent Peter Middleton a letter and a pair of gold cufflinks.
Peter Middleton met Prince William in September 2010 at his 90th birthday party, but he would unfortunately not live long enough to see his granddaughter walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey. Mr. Middleton passed away on November 2nd, 2010, just days before William and Catherine’s engagement was announced, and his funeral was attended by the couple. Catherine is said to have visited her grandfather after getting engaged in late October, so I really hope she was able to tell her last surviving grandparent her big news.
All of this to say, yes, Catherine has distant relations to the Royal Family and the upper class, but they were never part of the aristocracy, and most of their money and name came from their own businesses and work. Both her maternal and paternal heritage is marked by hard-working men and women vying for a better life for their families. However, this simple fact did not stop the nastiness she had to endure from the press…
Earning Respect
Not only did they dissect her background, but she was also subjected to other vitriol such as the nickname “Waity Katie” (because it is a crazy concept to not rush into marriage with the future monarch of the country), constant body shaming, and obsession over every aspect of her life.
Plagued in old articles from the years William and Catherine were dating were comments about what she did for a living or what she stood for, what she believed, what she thought, etc. All of these slights, disguised as simple speculation, were attempts at portraying her as a brainless woman with no interests of her own apart from her relationship.
The simple truth is, why did we have to know? From 2004 to November 2010, Kate Middleton was not a public figure. Being Prince William’s girlfriend did not establish her as a public person; becoming his wife did. Her engagement interview was the first time the public had heard her speak, and there was nothing wrong with that! That should have always been the expected reality when William began dating a girl who was never pursuing a life in the limelight.
I will always take time to point out that Catherine did not spend those years during her relationship doing nothing. After graduation, she struggled to find a job, not because there was nothing, but because she was *offered* every job under the sun. The struggle was accepting a job that would not be viewed as her using her royal connection. In 2006, she began working as an Accessories Buyer for Jigsaw.
The press wrongly reported at the time that she secured her job because her parents were friends with the owners, Belle and John Robinson. After Catherine left her job, Belle said this was not true and she, in fact, was not friends with her parents.
Living in London had become a hassle for Catherine as she was physically stalked and had cameras waiting outside her flat every morning when leaving for work. The paparazzi had no limits and would do anything to get a photo of her. Some even expressed that they wished she would slip and fall so they would be able to sell the pictures for a higher price. She kept her poise most of the time, but sometimes it was just too much. Belle Robinson said of Catherine’s attitude:
“I have to say I was so impressed by her. There were days when there were TV crews at the end of the drive. We'd say: 'Listen, do you want to go out the back way?' And she'd say: 'To be honest, they're going to hound us until they've got the picture. So why don't I just go, get the picture done, and then they'll leave us alone.' I thought she was very mature for a 26-year-old, and I think she's been quite good at neither courting the press nor sticking two fingers in the air at them. I don't think I would have been so polite."
Upon leaving Jigsaw in 2008, Catherine began working for her family’s business, “Party Pieces,” as a website designer and photographer. During her time there, she developed the company’s first birthday and baby catalogs.
Catherine was also doing charity work before her marriage. While at the University of St. Andrews, she was a founding member of the Lumsden Club, which aims to support women’s issues and donates funds to women’s and children’s charities. She was said to make frequent visits to a children’s hospice, Naomi House and, in her position at Party Pieces, she worked to put together party bags and throw parties for the terminally ill children of the Starlight Foundation
In 2009, Catherine was part of the planning committee of a fundraising event for the Starlight charity, which saw artists enlisted to help the children make paintings. At the end of the night, more than £120,000 was raised at the event, which Prince William also attended in support of his girlfriend.
As you can see, Catherine was living her life as a private person while inadvertently preparing for her future role, whether she knew it or not. She did her work while remaining dignified through the press abuse, stalking paparazzi, and even her phone being hacked at least 155 times (compared to William’s phone being hacked 35 times and Harry's nine times).
Children’s Princess
Her marriage to Prince William in 2011 did not automatically make the press respect her. Catherine still endured years of abuse (ex., when topless photos of her were published on the front page of a magazine) and bizarre stories: “A Plastic Princess Designed To Breed,” “Three Kitchens Kate,” “It’s Not Just Those Brows - You Need a Whole New Image.” It was not until her work started speaking for itself that the tide started slightly changing.
All too often, we see celebrities support initiatives of which they have little to no idea about. We’ve been accustomed to seeing public figures donate to charity, but if you were to ask them the first thing about the organization they are supporting, they would just tell you the surface, basic description. That is why The Princess of Wales’s approach to her public role was strategically mapped out to ensure that she was knowledgeable and would be able to make the most impact.
The press criticized Catherine for taking her time, but Rebecca Priestley, The Princess’s first private secretary, said that after the Royal Wedding, Catherine approached her life committed to public service like a “blank piece of paper.” Rebecca noted that The Princess had put much thought into her life as a public figure and was adamant that first, she was going to listen and learn:
“Catherine wanted to get under the skin of this new role and the challenges she was about to take on. She wanted to learn. There were a lot of under-the-radar visits and she saw people privately to help her understand the issues she wanted to put her name to. These were lifelong decisions she was taking. She wanted to have credibility when she spoke. And that actually takes huge strength of character.”
So listening and learning was what she did. In early 2012, the palace announced that the then-just Duchess of Cambridge had taken on four patronages. Among these patronages included Action on Addiction, an organization that works with people who have alcohol and drug issues, and her work with the charity would prove to be the catalyst for her individual initiatives.
During one private visit with female inmates at a detox center, Catherine heard one woman speak about how some of her first memories include seeing needles on her childhood home floor. According to Rebecca, The Princess had become “concerned that there was a pre-destiny about those affected – an inevitability about it. These women were born into it, and there was very little chance of escape.”
The Heads Together campaign, spearheaded by William, Catherine, and William’s younger brother, was announced in 2016 with the aim of getting rid of the stigma and changing the conversation around mental health. Demonstrating true humility, it was not for another year until the royal brothers revealed that the initiative was, in fact, Catherine’s idea. She said about how she came up with the idea:
“Because it’s a common thread wasn’t it. Mental Health seemed to run between all of the different areas that we were working in. So whether it’s homelesness, military for yourself, and addication with me, and bereavment, there was a sort of underlying thread of mental health.”
After the success of Heads Together, The Princess of Wales set out to establish her own project. She has always been acutely aware that her initiatives are lifelong projects, as she will spend the rest of her days as a member of this public family. In 2018, shortly before the birth of her third child, Catherine began planting the seeds for her Early Years intervention work. The Princess attended a symposium organized by The Royal Foundation for academics, professionals, and charities, where she announced that she had convened a steering group to discover how to provide children with the best start in life.
The steering group’s meetings allowed Catherine to hear “first-hand about the lasting effects of adverse childhood experiences, but also how positive, protective factors in the early years can play a crucial role in long-term outcomes for our children.” Her newly garnered knowledge led Catherine to launch her “5 Big Questions” initiative, an Ipsos MORI research study commissioned by The Royal Foundation to understand what the UK thinks about the under-fives.
To promote the survey, The Princess of Wales embarked on a 24-hour mini-tour across the United Kingdom. The word was out, and ultimately the survey garnered over 500,000 results, becoming the largest-ever response to a public survey of its kind. The “5 Big Insights” were unveiled in November 2020 at a forum and have been proven valuable to Catherine’s work and the early years sector as a whole.
During the results reveal, The Princess of Wales made sure to note that her interest in early years is not just because she is a mum:
“People often ask why I care so passionately about the early years. Many mistakenly believe that my interest stems from having children of my own. While of course I care hugely about their start in life, this ultimately sells the issue short. If we only expect people to take an interest in the early years when they have children, we are not only too late for them, we are underestimating the huge role others can play in shaping our most formative years, too.”
The Princess of Wales’s work continued with the launch of The Royal Foundation Centre For Early Childhood in June 2021. The new Center will focus on three things in the coming years: (1) promoting and commissioning high-quality research to increase knowledge and share best practices, (2) working with people from across the private, public, and voluntary sectors to collaborate on new solutions, and (3) developing creative campaigns to raise awareness and inspire action, driving real, positive change on the early years.
The establishment of the Center came with a new website and an inaugural report titled “Big Change Starts Small.” With this new organization, Catherine has been able to do her own individual work on their behalf. In early 2022, The Princess of Wales took the Center for Early Childhood to the international stage as she made a working visit to Denmark. In Copenhagen, Catherine learned from Denmark’s example as a country “widely recognized as a world leader in its approach and investment in early childhood development.”
A year on from the announcement of the Center, The Princess of Wales hosted a roundtable with government officials, senior civil servants, and representatives from the early years sector, where they unveiled new findings into early childhood development. This is the beauty of having a Princess on your side… Catherine is able to bring people together with her influence like no other person can. One person who has worked with her said:
"We’re still seeing the result of the research that she went into and the conversations she had with experts back in the day that were rooted around family breakdown. She’s very collaborative, not just within the team but also wanting to use her position to bring others together. And we’re seeing the results of that now."
We can see how much taking her time and learning about what she is advocating for has truly benefited The Princess of Wales’s work. Multiple people who have worked with her or just spoken to her have concluded that she knows what she is talking about and is incredibly knowledgeable. One of my favorite quotes about her impact comes from Peter Fonagy, Professor at UCL and CEO of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, of which Catherine is a patron of:
“She has boosted our profile exponentially and has had a huge role in raising the national awareness in the mental health of children. As far as we are concerned she’s the most important woman doing this in the world right now. To the millions of children who have been suffering in silence, she is their voice.”
Jewel in The Crown
I recently read some of the articles published for Catherine’s 40th birthday last year, and multiple remarked that the next time she celebrated a landmark birthday (fifty in 2032), she would be “The Princess of Wales.” She did not have to wait for her next age milestone because she became the Princess of Wales less than a year after those articles were shared.
The tricky thing about her new title is that it was so connected to her late mother-in-law, Diana. Queen Camilla was, in fact, the Princess of Wales, but upon her marriage to Charles in 2005, it was announced that she would not use the title out of respect to Diana. Meaning, Catherine is the first to use the title since 1996 (as upon her divorce, Diana seized being “THE Princess of Wales”).
Although the press continues with the comparisons (thankfully to a lesser extent now), Catherine is not Diana, and she has never tried to be Diana. During their engagement interview, they were asked whether William’s mother’s legacy and “icon” status were intimidating. To which Prince William responded:
“There's no pressure though. There's no pressure, like Kate said it is about carving your own future. No one is going to try to fill my mother's shoes, what she did was fantastic. It's about making your own future and your own destiny and Kate will do a very good job of that.”
If Catherine is following anyone’s lead, it is not her late mother-in-law but her husband’s great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. Adolf Hitler called her the “most dangerous woman in Europe” after she refused to leave London during World War II bombings. She has often been described as a marshmallow made of steel: soft on the outside but firm on the inside. Sound familiar?
Making her own destiny is precisely what Catherine has done and will continue to do. When she was named “Princess of Wales,” a statement noted that Catherine “appreciated the history” of the title (obviously referring to her late mother-in-law) but would “want to look to the future as she creates her own path.” Her view on her position is healthy and shows how seriously she takes her role and the influence it provides. She is not trying to be anyone but herself.
This next era in Catherine’s life will be a shaping one. As she watched her father-in-law become King, one must wonder how it must have felt for her to realize that not only is her husband closer to his destiny but so is her young son. With Queen Elizabeth II gone, The Princess of Wales is who people view to be the most senior woman in the family.
Now you may ask, “hold on, what about Queen Camilla?” Unfortunately, because of her image, which has gotten better but is still quite negative, people do not look at her and see her as The Queen. When people think about royal women, it is Catherine who is the face and at the top, although not institutionally speaking. This does bring a particular type of pressure upon her, but I believe she has and will continue to take it into her stride.
I can confidently say that Catherine is the current backbone of the monarchy in many ways. The way she takes her work seriously and easily interacts with anyone she comes across has portrayed the monarchy in a new light. Her composure at crucial moments and critical events prove to the world how strong she is. Further, she has often been described as Prince William’s backbone and anchor, a position that will be increasingly important now that he is heir and eventually when he is King.
The truth is, a woman not born into The Royal Family has quickly become their saving grace. As one commentator remarked:
“In 2011, the question mark over Kate Middleton was whether a girl of such unexalted origins could succesfully evolve into a future Queen. Now, the only question is how the House of Windsor could surivive without her.”
As Catherine enters her 41st year, she is also beginning her first full year as The Princess of Wales. Her first three months have been great, and I can not wait to see all of the good work she continues to do but now with an even greater platform.
Happy Birthday, Catherine The Great!
This was so well written! Thanks so much!
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happy Birthday to Catherine The Princess of Wales who incite in people like you to be this honest and kind while "speaking" about her. It was so good to read after these last days... You have a gift for healing broken hearts ;)