William and Catherine

Taking comfort in each other

In her video last Friday, the Princess of Wales made a careful and deliberate tribute to the one person who has shared her recent pain. “Having William by my side is a great source of comfort and reassurance too,” she said. Not the type to gush in public, her words were typically understated. The two have faced weeks of speculation and wild conspiracy theories linked to the Princess’s absence from public life, the release of paparazzi pictures, an international storm over a family photograph that was edited in Photoshop and a furore over a visit to a Windsor farm shop. They have also been supporting the King as he undergoes his own course of cancer treatment.

Any one of these things would be enough to break some couples. But the Prince and Princess long ago learnt how to batten down the hatches and ride out storms. They weathered a brief but highlypublicised split in 2007 before reuniting and developing into an equal partnership. Their shared competitive streak has made for many an entertaining royal engagement but behind closed doors, they work as a team, sharing the childcare and the school runs. Royal insiders note that they are very similar in that they are both “intrinsically quite shy” and sometimes struggle with life in the limelight. Crucially, the key priority they share is family. For the Prince, that desire is borne out of his own experiences, a child of divorce with warring parents hounded by paparazzi. The death of his mother when he was just 15 only deepened his resolve to create a secure family unit for his children that he guards fiercely. The Princess may have enjoyed an idyllic childhood. but it’s that normal family unit that represents where their shared priorities lie.