Kate (27 page)

Even though she had thought about little else for so long, when the moment came, Kate was speechless. Later, she declared that it was “very romantic” and a total surprise. As always where William was concerned, a degree of rationality applied to even this unique moment in his life, and he and Kate agreed to keep the proposal a secret until he asked Kate's father for her hand in marriage. He also wanted them to be able to enjoy the moment together before the news was made public. It was a secret he knew they wouldn't be able to hold on to for too long, knowing that within a matter of seconds of an official announcement, the news would go global. So when Kate signed the guest book the next morning, she gave nothing
away. “Thank you for such a wonderful twenty four hours,” she wrote. “Sadly no fish to be found but we had fun trying. I love the warm fires and candle lights—so romantic. Hope to be back soon.”

When they returned home to Anglesey, Kate put her engagement ring in the safe. Had it been any other ring she might have been able to get away with wearing it on another finger, but Princess Diana's diamond-and-sapphire cluster was immediately recognizable. Although no one—not even his father or brother—knew of his intention to propose to Kate while away, William had spoken with Harry to make sure his younger brother was happy for him to have their mother's ring, as and when the time came.

Once they were back in Wales and William had returned to work, he invited Michael and Carole to Birkhall for the weekend. He had personally overseen everything from ensuring that there were freshly picked flowers in the guest bedrooms to organizing the menus. Just before supper on the first night, William took Michael into the drawing room, poured them both a large whiskey, and asked for permission to marry Kate. Without a moment's hesitation, Michael gave William his blessing. Before William could make the announcement, he knew that royal protocol meant that he had to ask for his grandmother's permission to marry Kate. He made Michael swear not to tell a soul about their secret engagement, not even Carole, explaining why it was of paramount importance that the news did not leak out before the official announcement from the Palace.

Michael kept his word; however, the weekend away didn't stay a secret for long. Carole had been photographed hunting
in the Highlands, and the pictures, which were published the following week, caused a sensation. The fact that the Middletons were staying in a royal residence was seen as highly significant, prompting fresh speculation in the press that an announcement was just around the corner. The story traveled across the world like wildfire, with magazines in America buzzing with predictions that a wedding really was about to happen.
Vanity Fair
published an article predicting a wedding in 2011, while another tabloid publication in the States went further, dedicating its cover to the story: “Royal Wedding Is On!”

But despite the fervid speculation, there was no announcement from the Palace. When, weeks later, William and Kate were photographed in Gloucestershire at their friend Harry Meade's wedding, there were more rumors. Arriving arm-in-arm, smiling at the waiting cameras, they went through the front entrance rather than the side door. Later that evening at the reception, talk turned to when William and Kate would be walking down the aisle. “Maybe he'll get round to it some day,” Kate told her friends, while William batted off jokes about how long he was taking to pop the question.

They knew they could not keep the engagement secret for much longer and agreed to make the announcement officially on Wednesday, November 3. The plan was abandoned, however, when Kate's only surviving grandparent, Peter, died suddenly the day before. William attended the funeral at the West Berkshire Crematorium before flying to Afghanistan for a Remembrance Sunday service with British troops, where he laid a wreath at Camp Bastion. Kate was deeply saddened not to have had the chance to tell her grandfather that she was engaged to William. She knew he would have been delighted for her.

On his return from Afghanistan on Monday, William and Kate agreed that they would make the announcement the following morning. The legally binding Royal Marriages Act 1772 obliged William to ask for his grandmother's consent. Providing she granted it, the Queen was then required to sign a notice of approval under the Great Seal of the Realm. Ironically, it had been made law by George III after his younger brother, the Duke of Cumberland, had secretly married the widow of a commoner. Now William and Kate, the first true commoner to marry into the royal family for several centuries, were about to write royal history.

It was Tuesday, November 16, 2010, and the Queen, who had been reading briefing notes on her official duties for the morning over her breakfast of cornflakes, was thrilled to receive William's call, albeit a little surprised at the suddenness of the announcement. “The Queen had no idea that there would be an announcement that morning,” said a source. “She was eating breakfast with Philip when William called to tell her the news. It was rather hurried, because William was apparently worried about it leaking out.”

William enjoyed outfoxing the media, and this was one announcement he wanted to make himself. The last thing he wanted was a newspaper getting the scoop, as had happened with his father's engagement to Camilla. When William called from his private living quarters at Clarence House with Kate by his side, Charles was with Camilla at Highgrove, preparing to travel to Devon that morning. They were both overjoyed.

Harry, who was at his army base in Hampshire, turned the air blue with a string of expletives when the couple called to tell him the happy news. “It took you long enough,” he joked.
Kate then called her parents in Bucklebury. Of course her father knew, and Kate wasn't sure whether he had told her mother. Either way, it didn't matter. Kate told them to brace themselves for the announcement.

It was just after 9:00
A.M
. when the couple walked across the cobbled courtyard to meet with William's private secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton. The former Special Air Service officer, known for his meticulous planning, congratulated the couple and told them the Palace Press Office would be ready to make the announcement by 11:00
A.M
. The couple then went to see William's chief press officer, Miguel Head, and his team. “We were ecstatic when they came in to tell us,” recalled an aide. “We genuinely had no idea they were secretly engaged, and they looked so happy when they told us. There was a palpable sense of relief. Then the hard work started, and there was an awful lot to organize in a very short time. Two hours later, we made the announcement.”

In keeping with their modern courtship, the news was posted on the royal family's recently launched Facebook page, while Clarence House also tweeted the news, which was retweeted thousands of times and went viral within seconds. A press statement was issued to the world's media via e-mail: “The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton. The wedding will take place in the spring or summer of 2011 in London.”

It was the job of the Queen's private office, together with the British government, to decide on the date. which was no small task. Heads of state and diplomats around the world, along with foreign royals, would all need to be consulted. Although William had secretly hoped for a family wedding at St.
George's Chapel in Windsor, like his cousin Peter Phillips, he knew that his wedding day would be akin to a semistate occasion. The only real options were St. Paul's Cathedral, where his mother and father had married, or Westminster Abbey, where the Queen had married Prince Philip, and her father, King George VI, had married Elizabeth Bowes Lyon.

Within minutes of the announcement, hundreds of journalists and reporters had gathered at Buckingham Palace. By lunchtime, TV crews from across the world were assembled at Canada Gate on the Mall reporting on the biggest royal story since the death of Princess Diana. The Queen was the first to comment publicly: “It is brilliant news,” she told TV journalists at Windsor Castle. “It has taken them a very long time.” Charles joked to reporters: “They've been practicing long enough.” Camilla declared the news “wicked,” while Harry couldn't stop smiling. “It means I get a sister, which I have always wanted,” he said.

Prime Minister David Cameron added his personal congratulations, and Kate's parents held an impromptu press conference at the family home, where reporters and camera crews had gathered at the end of their driveway. They had spent the morning working on a brief statement at the kitchen table, assisted by members of William's press team, who had made themselves available by phone. Now that the engagement was to be made official, the Middleton family, at William's request, would be supported for the immediate future by the Palace's impressive PR machine.

Apart from his quip to one reporter nearly eight years ago on the weekend of Kate's twenty-first birthday party, Michael had never spoken to the media. If he was nervous, he didn't show it, facing the cameras with composure: “Carole and I are
absolutely delighted by today's announcement and thrilled at the prospect of a wedding sometime next year,” he said. “As you know, Catherine and Prince William have been going out together for quite a number of years, which has been great for us because we have got to know William very well. We all think he is wonderful and we are extremely fond of him. They make a lovely couple, they are great fun to be with, and we've had a lot of laughs together. We wish them every happiness for the future.” Carole, dressed in a fleece top and designer jeans, smiled but said nothing. She had telephoned James and Pippa that morning to warn them that they would probably be contacted by the press, and to not say a word. Although the family had never had any instruction from the Palace about how to deal with the media, Kate had always advised them not to say anything to reporters. The wall of silence she had insisted on ever since she and William started dating was more important now than ever before.

As soon as the announcement was made, Scotland Yard's elite Royal Protection, known as SO14, had contacted the commander of the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department at Buckingham Palace and asked for a team of three officers to be made immediately available to Kate. The officer in charge would be Inspector Karen Llewellyn, previously responsible for protecting Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, whose royal protection had been scaled down as a cost-cutting measure. The other two were Sergeant Emma Probert, who, like Carole, had worked as a flight attendant before a change of career, and one of Prince Harry's close protection officers, Detective Sergeant Ieuan Jones. Kate had met with the officers that morning and from that moment on was accompanied everywhere by the team. There was also a permanent police
presence at Oak Acre, where uniformed officers brandishing semiautomatic machine guns patroled the grounds. It was, Carole later admitted to a friend, one of the hardest adjustments to this new life, not just for Kate but also for the family. Their friends in the village also had to get used to police convoys and SUVs with black windows driving through Chapel Row, as well as an unprecedented number of reporters who knocked on doors of neighbors and friends and visited the local shops in search of information about the family. Soon, there were guided bus tours taking over the narrow country lanes, with guides pointing out the couple's favorite pub, Kate's first school, and the family's former home in Bradfield.

It was William's parents who had set the precedent for celebrating royal engagements by granting a TV interview, and William and Kate knew that it would be expected of them. The press aides at the Palace had been liaising with ITN News all morning. William wanted them to speak to the news network's political editor, Tom Bradby, who had interviewed him before. He was one of the few journalists William trusted, and by coincidence, Kate knew Mr. Bradby's wife, Claudia, a jewelry designer with whom she had worked at Jigsaw. Mr. Bradby was summoned to the Palace while he was walking to Westminster that morning. “The phone rang and it was Clarence House on the line,” he told the
Daily Mail
. “They're engaged,” said a voice. “It's out there. You're on.” He was told that the interview was set for 7:00
P.M
. that evening and that there was no time to waste. While TV cameras were set up at St. James's Palace, Kate and William chatted with Mr. Bradby: “They seemed in high spirits, happy and relaxed. ‘Are you OK?' William asked Kate once or twice. ‘I'm fine,' she told him. ‘I'll be looking after
you
!'”

Kate chose a royal-blue silk jersey dress by one of her favorite designers, Brazilian-born Daniella Helayel of Issa, and the color perfectly complemented her ring. Meanwhile, her trusted hairdresser, James Pryce, was called to the Palace to blow-dry her hair. “I was doing a client when I got a call from the Palace asking me to come and do Kate's hair. They told me that they had announced their engagement. It was hugely exciting and the most important blow dry I'd ever done. Kate just asked me for the usual.” Kate had been dreading the interview, and afterward Mr. Bradby remembered her leaning back and sighing with relief, exclaiming, “I'm no good at this!”

While the film was taken to an editing room, there was another nerve-wracking appointment still to go—the official photo session—which meant coming face to face with Fleet Street's royal press pack. William led Kate into the stateroom with some trepidation, but it wasn't the lion's den she had feared. Kate introduced herself as Catherine and happily displayed her ring. “I'm sure you all recognize it,” said William. Some of the journalists had covered Charles and Diana's engagement announcement nearly thirty years earlier, and the ring brought back memories of a young Lady Diana Spencer. Back then, in Charles and Diana's interview, when a reporter asked Prince Charles if he was in love, he famously responded, “Whatever love means.” With his arm protectively around Kate, it was clear William knew exactly what love meant.