Kate Middleton (Reading, United Kingdom, 42 years old) climbed thousands of covers and first pages until reaching a height where criticism was no longer heard.
Just the signs of admiration.
When she revealed that she is being treated with preventive chemotherapy to stop the cancer she suffers from, the blow was not given to her, but to all the media and anonymous—and not so anonymous—characters on social media who had been making fun of her for two months. cost of your health.
Before half the world knew her as the Duchess of Cambridge, first;
Princess of Wales, later: and always as the wife of the heir to the throne, William of England, she was able to climb with her father, Michael Middleton, Mont Blanc, the star peak of the Alps and the highest point in Western Europe.
She belonged to an athletic family, which did not shy away from challenges.
“Over the years, we have climbed many mountains together.
As a family, we will also climb this one with you,” Middleton's brother, James William Middleton, wrote this Friday on his Instagram account, along with an old photo of both of them, in which they are still two smiling children in the middle of nature. .
Just after her courtship with Charles and Diana's eldest son came to light, the cruelty of the British tabloid press took advantage, in a very different sense, of Kate's ascendant abilities.
She and her sister, Pippa, were baptized—with that macho stench that the UK tabloids have never shaken—as the
“wisteria sisters
,” in reference to that plant so popular on facades. of the London residences: it is beautiful and decorative, it has an intense fragrance... and it climbs quickly, said the joke.
Prince William with his then girlfriend, Kate Middleton, at Cranwell Air Base on April 11, 2008POOL New (REUTERS)
“Waity Katy”
, they also called her.
Something like 'Katy, the one who waits', to make fun of the young woman who desperately waited for years for Prince William to decide to propose marriage.
They referred to her as a
commoner
, and questioned her nerves in public, her strident voice, and her boring wardrobe.
Years of eccentricity and exoticism in which the model was Lady Di had created a generation of scandalous and easy-to-tear tabloid monarchists in whom a conservative, conventional and anodyne character was not valued.
Despite the fact that it was precisely those characteristics that were most admired about the late Isabel II.
Years of comeback
Even the series
The Crown
(Netflix) supported the theory that Carole Middleton had meticulously sculpted the social trajectory of her daughters, always towards the top.
She is credited with the decision to take Kate out of the University of Edinburgh, when she had barely been there for a year, and send her to St. Andrews, where Prince William had just enrolled, and where Kate's courtship ended up taking shape. she.
The wedding took place on April 29, 2011, at Westminster Abbey.
Since then, Middleton has not stopped taking the appropriate steps, at least for that part of conservative and traditional British society that wants a monarchy with all its conventions.
A dedicated motherhood - the couple has three children: Jorge, Carlota and Luis -, unconditional support for her husband, an initial devotion to Isabel II that she later transferred to her father-in-law, King Charles III, and a neat correction when he appears at public events.
All the attributes required of a future queen.
The Duchess of Cambridge arrived at the funeral of Philip of Edinburgh.
Kate Middleton wore a pearl necklace and earrings that were part of Queen Elizabeth II's personal collection.
Pieces that the monarch also lent to Lady Di in 1982.CHRIS JACKSON (AFP)
Some critical voices saw more calculation than naturalness in his behavior.
Hilary Mantel, the writer idolized by many Britons for her trilogy about the Tudors, defined Kate as “an object of precision” without apparent flaws, very different from a Lady Di who “showed her human clumsiness and emotional incontinence in every gesture.” .
Citizens addicted to the daily life of royalty, however, or those who simply wanted the least possible extravagances from their institutions, learned to love a woman who fulfilled the obligations corresponding to her position with rigor and good spirit.
The Windsors have always known that a smile is a much more powerful weapon of communication than any public statement, and Kate has not stopped smiling over the years.
When she confessed to the writer Giovanna Fletcher that she had felt “slightly terrified” when presenting the newborn Prince George to the media from the hospital stairs in 2013 – a tradition imposed on all women in the royal family, which only Meghan Markle decided to break—Kate followed the rule that worked so well for her grandmother-in-law, Elizabeth II: obligations, always before needs, “because it was really important to be able to share the joy of that moment with citizens,” Middleton explained. .
In recent days, the Princess of Wales has discovered that citizens are insatiable when it comes to sharing.
Her joys are not enough for him.
She also wants the sorrows.
Despite her initial resistance, and her desire to protect the marriage's three children, Middleton has chosen to explain to the world her state of health and her current anguish.
And in doing so, she has returned to the peak that it took her so much effort to reach: the only place where she can feel protected.
Follow all the international information on
and
X
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_