“It was of course a huge shock.”
Kate Middleton announced this Friday March 22 in a video posted on Instagram that she had cancer and was undergoing preventative chemotherapy.
In this speech which set the United Kingdom in turmoil, the Princess of Wales explains her media absence and her silence, which have raised so many questions in recent weeks.
“William and I have done everything we can to absorb and manage privately, for the well-being of our young family.
As you can imagine, it took us a while.
It took me a while to recover from a major operation so that I could begin my treatment and, more importantly, it took us a while to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in an appropriate manner. for them, to reassure them that I will get through it,” she insists.
“Like I told them, I’m fine.
I gain strength every day by focusing on the things that will help me heal in my head, my body and my morale.
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Children scrutinized
Across the Channel, like everywhere else, there is a shock wave.
And the eyes of the whole world are today on the three children of Kate Middleton and Prince William.
When and under what circumstances did they learn the news?
How did they react and how have they surrounded their mother since?
Apart from Kate's few words in her video recording, we don't know more.
But what is certain is that the attention for little Wales is likely to increase tenfold.
To the great dismay of their parents who always sought to protect them from the media.
The proof: Kate and William raise them away from prying eyes in a 4-bedroom cottage in Berkshire, a few steps from Windsor Castle.
And their official photos are most of the time taken by their mother herself, preferring to control the image, inevitably scrutinized from all sides, of her children.
Because despite their (almost) normal lives, these children are respectively second, third and fourth in the order of succession to the British throne.
Their father, Prince William, is the future king.
Their mother, Kate Middleton, is one of the most popular and famous royals around the world.
They are therefore the first to suffer the recent media storm surrounding the state of health of the Princess of Wales, as Stéphane Bern affirmed in the columns of Le
Parisien
this weekend: “The children of Kate and William are at the "school, and they are subjected to these questions on a daily basis."
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George, heir to the throne
In second position in the order of succession to the British throne, Prince George seems, at the age of 10, to have understood his status as heir.
The program developed by her grandmother Elizabeth II, from the age of 5 - two hours of lessons per week, between the history of the monarchy and the study of protocol - is undoubtedly not foreign.
It is also the one of Kate and William's three children who is most highlighted during official events.
For it is he who, in due time, will become king.
The little blond guy in short pants has transformed, in recent years, into a responsible prince, dressed in suits, ties and ceremonial clothes.
During the coronation of King Charles III, celebrated on May 6, 2023, we remember seeing him officiate as a page of honor, responsible for carrying the heavy train of the sovereign.
He thus became the youngest future monarch of England to play a leading role during a coronation and, with dignity and concentration, rose to the occasion.
This transformation was all the more striking during the first Easter mass attended by the pre-teen, on April 9, at St. George's Chapel in Windsor.
He walked forward with a confident step, offering a priest a firm handshake.
A solemnity which he also demonstrated during the funeral of his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, in September 2022.
Entrance to college
On the other hand, we wonder: could Kate's illness weigh on the choice of George's future school, who will enter sixth form at the start of the next school year?
Sometimes expected to join Eton College, the boarding school of Marlborough College or Saint Edward of Oxford, the young prince could be led to stay not far from the family home of Adelaide Cottage, in Windsor.
Which would favor Eton, located opposite.
George is not alone in his ordeal with illness.
He can not only count on the rest of the royal family, on the very solid Middleton clan, but also on his discreet and wise sister Charlotte, aged 8, and on Louis, 5 years old, the mischievous youngest of the family , the one to whom Kate has shown the most complicity in public.
In June 2022, during Elizabeth II's jubilee in London, the outpourings of affection from the then Duchess of Cambridge with her youngest went around the world.
Kate Middleton and her youngest, Prince Louis.
(London, June 5, 2022.) Abaca
For the moment, both attend the same elementary school as George: Lambrook School.
This private establishment in the east of England, founded in 1860 and housed in a vast white stucco residence, surrounded by a large park, is just fifteen minutes' drive from Adelaide Cottage.
The little bubble of Wales since their move from London in the summer of 2022 also constitutes the refuge in which the convalescence of Kate, who is preparing to start her preventive chemotherapy against cancer, is taking place.