Inside Kate Middleton’s inseparable bond with ‘pa’ King Charles & how she has played ‘peace-maker’ between him & William
THERE was a time when King Charles complained he rarely saw Prince William and his family, but these days he has a special bond with Kate.
Back in early 2015, some friends of the royals were saying that the then Prince Charles was unhappy because his elder son and wife never brought their toddler son Prince George to see him.
The couple, it was alleged, were much closer to Michael and Carole Middleton.
Like all families, they have their ups and downs and the occasional tensions, while getting to see each other is complicated by the fact that the King is a workaholic.
But there is no doubt that the 75-year-old monarch and Queen Camilla are closer to the Prince and Princess of Wales these days.
The family’s rift with Harry and Meghan has helped to bring them closer, according to some insiders, and the King and Kate’s dual cancer diagnosis and treatment at the same time has deepened their bond.
For William it has been an awful time.
“His wife and father have both had operations and then both been subsequently diagnosed with cancer. It’s been tough,” one royal source said.
Kate, 42, has always been the steely one, holding the family together but has had to find strength during her chemotherapy treatment from the love and support that her husband, children, and other relatives, including notably her father-in-law, have provided.
United over health
In January when they both found themselves in the same hospital, the London Clinic, for operations the King went to see his daughter-in law.
He was in for an enlarged prostate and she was there for planned abdominal surgery.
It was a small gesture, one perhaps not so surprising, but it demonstrated their closeness in a world of royalty where family members worry that visiting sick relatives can be disruptive for the medical staff because everything tends to stop if the monarch comes calling.
When they both discovered they had cancer in the aftermath of surgery, Charles and Kate supported each other, according to well-placed sources.
He announced his diagnosis in February, choosing to share some details while deciding against revealing what type of cancer he was suffering from, beyond making it clear that it was not prostate cancer.
In contrast, the Princess decided to keep her diagnosis a closely-guarded secret initially, thinking that the right time to tell her children would be when they were going off for a month’s holiday at Easter and she could protect them from other pupils repeating what they might have seen or heard.
Kate Middleton's affectionate nickname for father-in-law King Charles
HE may be the King of England to us regular folk, but Charles is just 'grandpa' to his daughter-in-law Kate Middleton.
Princess Kate appeared to have used the moniker for her father-in-law during a meeting at the G7 summit in 2021, according to a lip reader.
Upon arriving, the duchess greeted her father-in-law, and a lip reader told CornwallLive that she said: “Hello Grandpa, how are you?”
King Charles is grandfather to Kate and William’s three adorable kids – Princes George and Louis and cheeky Princess Charlotte – so the name is only fitting.
His Majesty reportedly has a couple of affectionate names for Kate, including “beloved daughter-in-law” and “darling daughter-in-law.”
‘Emotional’ meal
As The Sun revealed shortly afterwards, when the right time finally came in March, the King went to see her for a heart-to-heart conversation over an “emotional” lunch at Windsor Castle the day before she released a video announcing her cancer diagnosis to the world.
He already knew about her illness and was keen to help her.
“They are very close and he thinks of Catherine as his daughter,” one source said.
She in turn wanted to speak to her father-in-law to see how the man she often calls “Grandpa” was coping.
“They are two patients going through a common health experience,” one royal source said, suggesting part of the agenda was to discuss balancing how much detail to share with the public while preserving a degree of medical privacy.
“They are bound to have a close connection.”
Proud father-in-law
The next day after she had announced her news, Buckingham Palace said the King was “so proud of Catherine for her courage in speaking as she did”.
A spokesman said that after their time in hospital together, the monarch had “remained in the closest contact with his beloved daughter-in-law throughout the past weeks” and both he and Queen Camilla “will continue to offer their love and support to the whole family through this difficult time”.
They have stuck to their promise and Kate too has regularly checked up on her father-in-law, while Camilla has been cheerily putting on a brave face in public and remarking that her husband does not rest as much as she wishes he would.
Charles made a change for Kate
In public, the affection in which Charles holds his daughter-in-law was plain to see when he installed her beside him on the Buckingham Palace balcony for the traditional flypast after Trooping the Colour in June, her first public appearance since her diagnosis.
Behind the scenes, the two couples spent a few days together at Balmoral last month while William and Kate’s children stayed in Windsor, where there have been plenty of opportunities for the King to catch up with the Waleses in the castle or at their Adelaide Cottage home in the grounds.
Kate has played peacemaker
William and Kate also took their children up to Balmoral earlier in the summer for the traditional family gathering.
William and his father have not always seen eye to eye, partly because the son resented his father’s frequent absences when he was younger.
They are very close and he thinks of Catherine as his daughter
Royal source
But Kate has helped to bring them closer together, according to royal biographer Robert Jobson.
“An instinctive peace-maker, she has smoothed the way for William and his father to have a better relationship than they had in the past,” Jobson wrote In his biography Catherine, The Princess of Wales, published earlier this year.
Charles eyes ‘light up’
As for Charles: “His eyes light up when he sees her at family functions, and they always make a bee-line for each other,” he wrote.
Charles and his mother the late Queen also helped smooth the way for Kate when she was new to the family, making her and her and the rest of the Middletons welcome, anxious not to repeat the mistakes of early decades when women entering the Royal Family were often left feeling isolated.
In his book, Meet Ella, about the dog that helped him battle depression, Kate’s brother James Middleton has written about how Queen Elizabeth sometimes invited them to stay at Sandringham.
Kate Middleton's inside jokes with King Charles
THE pair are often seen laughing together at public events and seem comfortable in each other’s company.
One example is when they made each other laugh at a Commonwealth Observance event at Westminster Abbey in 2015.
Charles is said to have welcomed Kate into the family after William announced they were encouraged.
Kate said Charles had been “very, very welcoming and very friendly” to her, while her father-in-law said he was “thrilled” and “delighted” about the news.
Kate said in her engagement interview that she was “quite nervous about meeting William’s father,” but added that “it couldn’t have gone easier, really for me.”
He recalled how she asked him before his first visit: “Did you get my message, James? Ella is welcome to stay in your room.”
He paints a picture of warm family gatherings at both Sandringham House and Highgrove, visits that were never picked up by the media at the time.
“One Christmas, I popped into Highgrove to visit Catherine and William, who were staying with the King, who was then Prince Charles,” he writes, describing how Ella (a cocker spaniel) wondered off and into a bathroom while James and Kate were chatting over a cup of tea.
An instinctive peace-maker, she has smoothed the way for William and his father to have a better relationship than they had in the past
Rob Jobson
“It wasn’t until later that I learned that she had made her way up to a private bathroom and had pushed open the door to say hello to the occupant as they were having a bath.
“I was absolutely mortified.”
It is all a world away from the impression that is sometimes given of a cold, austere family hidebound by hierarchy and tradition.
In the warm embrace of their family, both the King and the Princess have found a bond that has sustained them through what has been a dark period in their lives.