Gossipy new book examines royal bros
A new book by a royal historian says that before Prince William and Kate Middleton were married, Kate turned down Christmas dinner at the royals’ Norfolk estate — because she wanted to go there only when she had an engagement ring to show off.
That’s according to insider Robert Lacey, who has written the book Battle of Brothers, which examines Princes William and Harry and their relationship with each other, as well as their unique roles in royal life. It is released on Oct. 15, and is being serialized in the Daily Mail.
In the book, Lacey says that it was in 2006 that the Queen made her invite, while the couple were still only dating. And although the Queen would never normally extend invites to mere girlfriends as opposed to wives or fiancées, she was making an exception for Kate to join the royals at Christmas. But Kate said no.
“By 2006, the couple had been dating seriously for the best part of five years,” Lacey writes in an excerpt in the Daily Mail. “Yet when William invited Kate to join him that year at Sandringham for the Royal Family’s traditional Christmas lunch, she refused.
“It was the first time the Queen had extended such an invitation to an unregistered ‘girlfriend’, but Kate had her own take on that break with tradition: she would go to Sandringham on Christmas Day only when she was engaged and had a ring to prove it.”
The refusal, though, didn’t scupper the relationship; if anything things only grew stronger from there on. After a period when they split for 10 weeks, the couple got back together and eventually married in 2011. Lacey writes, of the time they spent apart, that friends of William felt him to be somewhat lost without Kate. The excerpt reads:
“A friend of the prince’s was happy to reveal that ‘ William hasn’t stopped pining for Kate since they split up. He keeps saying she’s an amazing girl and the best thing to happen to him.’”
William was being put under pressure by his military friends to seal the deal, Lacey writes, while the Queen was telling him that such matters should not be rushed.
Lacey writes that after an interlude spent partying it up at U. K. nightspots — while Kate turned to rowing as a distraction from the split — William soon decided what he wanted.
After first running things by Harry, he asked Kate to Marry him in 2010, using a ring that had belonged to Princess Diana.
“Kate might have to put up with media derision for hanging around playing ‘ Waity Katie’ — but Prince William had finally made up his mind,” Lacey writes. “Aged 28, he went down on one knee during a 2010 safari holiday in Kenya to offer Kate his mother’s famous diamond- and- sapphire engagement ring — having cleared the gesture and the ring’s destination with Harry.”