We’ve been talking about the new biography of Prince Charles a lot in the past few weeks. The book is called Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life by Sally Bedell Smith, but it’s about a lot more than just Charles. There are stories about Diana (obviously), William, Kate, Harry and the Queen. I’ve been surprised by how much coverage this book has gotten online, especially since… there really isn’t much new stuff in here? Granted, I used to read a lot of royal biographies and memoirs from royal-adjacent people. If you want to read a really great book about Diana, I would absolutely suggest The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown. Anyway, there are some pieces of “news” that are getting wide coverage, so let’s do a list!
William & Kate’s wedding. Obviously, Will and Kate had to run their guest list through Buckingham Palace and William didn’t want to invite a lot of people that he didn’t know. So when he complained about the guest list, the Queen told him, “Get rid of it…Start from your friends and then we’ll add those we need to in due course. It’s your day.”
Katie Keen’s Kitchen. When Will & Kate were given Anmer Hall, they began an exhaustive renovation on the historic home. Kate hired architect Charles Morris and interior decorator Ben Pentreath to oversee the reno and Kate would apparently “type up notes of their conversations” on her train rides back and forth between London and Norfolk. Kate apparently insisted that the kitchen feel like the center of Anmer Hall (which is probably why she had the beautiful old kitchen ripped out). When the Queen visited the newly-renovated Anmer Hall, she apparently remarked on how “extraordinary” it was that they “all live in the kitchen.” I guess it has an open-concept? The Anmer Hall reno cost, according to this book, $2 million.
The Kensington Palace renovation. Apparently, KP had to be completely renovated because the ceilings were too low for William, who is something like 6’4”. The book estimates that the KP reno cost $6 million.
Kate snuck into a David Hockney exhibit. In 2012, she went to the Royal Academy of Arts after-hours to see the Hockney exhibit and she was able to chat with a lawyer and his son and they didn’t even know who she was.
Charles didn’t like Will & Kate’s first royal tour. In 2011, Will and Kate did a tour of Canada and they stopped in California too. When Charles was looking through their itinerary before they left for the trip, he apparently said that the tour was much too heavy on photo-ops.
Royal staffers. Charles has a lot of people around him, of course, and Will and Kate has far fewer staffers than Charles. But the award for most low-key staffing goes to Princess Anne, who apparently allows her butler to wear jeans!!
Some people think William & the Queen are cut from the same cloth. Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, former principal private secretary to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and to Prince Harry, says, “William is like his grandmother . . . . He gets on with his duty, dedicates himself to doing the job . . . . [He’s] looking at ‘the long game.’ ” The Queen, Lady Elizabeth Anson says, can see “continuity” with the couple.
I tend to believe that the Anmer Hall renovation cost a lot more than $2 million, especially if Kate insisted on a complete refiguring of the first floor and ripping out a gorgeous and already-remodeled kitchen, all so everyone could watch her make chutney. Plus, we know she had to move the tennis court to improve the view, add a “garden room addition,” add a new swimming pool and more. As for Will & Kate’s wedding guest list… it’s funny that the Queen told them it was okay to not invite a bunch of people who were presumably her friends or Charles’ friends. It’s funny because… Will and Kate’s wedding guest list was struggling. The Middletons were so drunk with power that they invited totally random people from Bucklebury just so Lady Carole could lord it all over the peasants! It was very funny.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
