Since Kate joined the Royal Family officially on her marriage to Prince William, her bond with King Charles has only gotten stronger, and experts have claimed that the Princess of Wales has helped the monarch become ‘more relatable’
Over the years, Princess Kate’s connection with her father-in-law King Charles has gone from strength to strength.
Their recent shared health challenges have only solidified their already close bond, royal experts have claimed. Kate’s announcement that she is undergoing a course of preventative chemotherapy took the nation by surprise, and she delivered the news in a moving video message that she reportedly wrote herself.
Kate appeared solo in the video message and the monarch immediately threw the full weight of his support behind the Princess of Wales, praising her “for her courage in speaking as she did” and noting that he has remained in the “closest contact” with his “beloved daughter-in-law” as they both deal with their respective health issues.
For a time both the senior royals were unable to conduct their usual programme of royal engagements, due to medical advice. However, King Charles’ doctors have recently cleared him to resume some public-facing duties because they are “sufficiently pleased with the progress [he’s] made so far” in his treatment. Charles won’t be working back at full steam though, and each engagement will “remain subject to doctors’ advice”. For the time being, Kate is still off-duty, and focussing on her recovery in private.
While Charles has never shied away from supporting Kate, royal experts also credit the princess for helping her father-in-law to seem “more relatable” to the public, The Express reports.
In a recent Channel 5 documentary, Kate and The King: A Special Relationship, the experts explored the way that Kate specifically has helped make the monarch embody an air of normality alongside his formal role.
India McTaggart – royal correspondent from The Telegraph – noted that one of these moments occurred at an emotional occasion: Prince Philip’s funeral in 2021. Taking place amid the social distancing restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic, there were only a select few in attendance at Philip’s funeral, and Kate didn’t hesitate to comfort Charles as he mourned his father. “We saw her comfort him when he was clearly grieving. She’s more and more tactile with him, I think, which is also lovely to see,” McTaggart noted.
Another time that Kate’s input helped the King seem more relatable was when she snapped a sweet photo of her husband William and Charles being affectionate with one another. In the image, Charles leans his head on his son’s shoulder, as both men grin broadly and William wraps his arm around his father’s shoulder. The behind-the-scenes snapshot that Kate captured showed the closeness and playfulness shared between the two royals, in a down-to-earth display that’s reminiscent of many people’s family photos.
The third occasion in which Kate helped to normalise the King was in another family photo – in which she let Prince Louis, then a baby, lean forward and grab his grandfather’s face, causing everyone pictured to smile and laugh. Body language expert Judi James said in the documentary, “You can see from Charles’s body language that, he’s got George on his knee, looking a little bit awkward [and] looking rather formal, but Kate is allowing Louis to lean forward, and rub his fingers on Charles’s face and make Charles look like a normal granddad.
“That is absolutely phenomenal because for a formal picture, how did Kate know that Charles would be happy with that? She clearly did because she’s smiling, but she’s not doing what most of us would be doing [holding the child back]… she knows that Charles would approve of this.”
The final occasion the experts noted was at the celebrations for the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, when Prince Louis stole the show with his big personality. In 2022, Louis was being a little rambunctious and Kate passed the young boy to his grandfather, and the royal editor for The Sun explained, that Charles quickly demonstrated he is a hands-on grandparent and was a “calming influence” on the excited Louis.
“That moment at the Jubilee where I think Kate was having problems with Louis, who is a bit of a handful, and she turned to Charles and he was a calming influence on a very lively young boy,” explained the expert.
A version of this article was published on 9 April 2024.
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