In the emotional wake of Prince Philip’s death, the royal family have rallied around the Queen.
And as senior royals prepare to step up to support her on future engagements, Prince William and wife Kate will be centre stage when the Queen’s official mourning ends on 22 April – her 95th birthday.
In a statement following his grandfather’s death, William, 38, pledged that he and Kate, 39, would support his grandmother, saying, “I will miss my grandpa, but I know he would want us to get on with the job.”
William and Kate – parents to George, seven, Charlotte, five and two-year-old Louis – will no doubt step seamlessly into their new roles.
Since they married 10 years ago this month, on 29 April 2011, they have found a place in the hearts of the nation and were last year voted the second and third most popular royals, after the Queen.
Now, royal expert Katie Nicholl – who has travelled with the couple on royal tours and written books Kate: The Future Queen and The Making Of A Royal Romance – tells Closer why she believes that, a decade on, they’re more in love and solid than ever.
‘They have an unwavering mutual respect for each other’
Kate and William met as students at the University of St Andrews in 2001 and Katie says their careful consideration of each other is what makes their bond so strong.
She says, “The dynamics that make Kate and William’s relationship work is friendship and partnership. They have an unwavering respect for each other. What’s always struck me is what a partnership they are. You really see teamwork put into practice. Also, there is an understanding between them. Kate’s never tried to upstage William, William has always made a point of supporting Kate and her solo projects. You get the impression he’s very proud of her now that we see her coming into her own more, particularly with the launch of her Early Years programme in the last two years.”
‘They’re naturally close – not just for the cameras’
In 2016, Kate and William took part in a seven-day tour of India and Bhutan and Katie says she was struck by the level of affection between the pair. She says, “They were just a solid team. I remember climbing up to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery with them. They’d posed halfway up for the cameras and everyone packed away their lenses and moved on to the next stop. As they turned to walk off, I noticed that at the same time, William and Kate put their arms around each other.
“It was such a spontaneous and natural thing to do and the cameras didn’t capture it. I think that closeness between them, that intimacy, is something that’s really natural and not staged.”
‘There’s a healthy sense of competition between them’
William has admitted in the past that he and Kate love to challenge each other –and revealed he struggled to beat the Duchess of Cambridge when it came to playing tennis against her. They’ve showed off their competitiveness on several occasions before, including dragon-boat races in 2011 and 2019 and a training session for the London Marathon in 2014.
Katie says, “I love the fact they’re quite competitive in spirit and on the pitch. When we were in India, they were keen to outdo the other on the cricket pitch and I think there’s a healthy sense of competition between them – you never quite know who’s going to win a tennis match, but you always know that Kate will want to beat William and William will want to beat Kate. I think it’s important in a relationship to be on the same wavelength like that.”
‘They finish each other’s sentences’
There have been many candid moments captured on camera showing how relaxed the couple are with each other, such as chucking snowballs during a holiday in the French Alps or throwing their arms around one another while watching the London 2012 Olympics. Katie says the couple exude happiness wherever they go.
She reveals, “It always strikes me how happy they are in each other’s company. You can see that this is a couple that have been together for such a long time. They finish one another’s sentences, they almost know what the other is thinking before they’ve even said it and that’s a really lovely example of their partnership.”
‘They make a great team’
The nation has watched Kate and William adapt to parenthood since welcoming their three children. After the birth of Prince George in 2013, William admitted he could only have done so with the support his wife, saying “There’s wonderful highs and there’s wonderful lows. It’s been quite a change for me personally. I’m very lucky in the support I have from Catherine. She is an amazing mother and a fantastic wife.”
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Although the couple’s children are cared for by one of the UK’s most highly trained nannies, Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo, Katie says they’re both very hands-on when it comes to parenting George, seven, Charlotte, five, and Louis, who’s three this week. She says, “Kate definitely takes more of a hand in helping with the home-schooling, homework, disciplining screen time. She’s the disciplinarian – probably a little more than William, but at home they are also a partnership. They make a great parenting team.
“When they’re planning their diaries, their instructions to aides are that they like for one of them to be around to do the morning school run and one of them to be around for teatime and homework prep time, bath time and that whole routine. It’s important they are hands-on and their schedules work around the children.”