New disclosures that Kate was the one behind the Royal Family’s famous Ophrah fightback statement, showing that she truly is the real steely operator in the Palace.
Details of how the late Queen approved the subtle but strong comeback to Harry and Meghan’s poisonous attack on the monarchy, using the expression ‘recollections may vary’, have emerged in a book by royal correspondent Valentine Low.
A draft palace statement initially didn’t include the famous expression, and was a much milder version, though the Prince and Princess of Wales were said to have demanded it be toughened up a bit. While Kate was right behind her husband, it was said that she was even more firm than him on the matter.
When a courtier first suggested the ‘recollections may vary’ phrase, which was hailed as a classic iron fist in velvet glove royal manoeuvre, at least two palace officials argued against it in case it enraged Harry and Meghan further.
But it was Kate, then the Duchess of Cambridge, who pressed home the argument that it should remain, Mr Low’s books says.
He quotes a source as saying that it was Kate who clearly made the point, ‘History will judge this statement and unless this phrase or a phrase like it is included, everything that they have said will be taken as true’.
The source said it was an example of how Kate is often far steelier than she appears, and that she doesn’t get as much credit as she should, because she is so subtle about it.
He said she’s playing the long game and she’s always got her eye on, ‘This is my life and my historic path and that she’s going to be the Queen one day’.
Author Claudia Joseph recently revealed how lines of strong, indomitable women run through both sides of Kate’s family history.
Hers is a story featuring deprivation and hardship in the Durham coalfields and in the working-class suburbs of London. There was also privilege, too, and connections to high society.
The main theme, nevertheless, is one of strong, matriarchal figures.
Kate’s mother, Carole, made sure her three children had the best possible start in life.
She got her drive and ambition from her own mother, Dorothy Goldsmith, who set her family on the road from poverty to prosperity, earning the affectionate moniker ‘Lady Dorothy’ along the way.
Kate’s invincible great-grandmother Edith Goldsmith was another formidable woman, who smoked 20 Woodbines a day and brought up six children in Southall, then a working-class suburb for railway depot workers in west London.
Widowed in 1938, Edith Goldsmith was left to bring up her two youngest children Joyce, then 13, and Kate’s grandfather Ronald, then six, in a condemned flat, juggling work at a nearby Ticklers jam factory.
And another of the Princess’s great-grandmothers, Olive Lupton, who passed away 45 years before Kate was born, had worked to ensure her family left behind the atrocities of the First World War.
Kate’s second cousin Kim Sullivan said that Prince William was a lucky man because Kate came from a family of strong women and that hopefully, the country will benefit from her strength of character in the years to come.
But Kate’s not playing any game, long or otherwise. She’s fulfilling her responsibility and doing her job, as well as protecting her children’s future, and she seems to be an iron fist in a velvet glove, and hopefully, the fate of the Monarchy will be in safe hands with this couple.
Hopefully, they will inject a new meaning to their role, one which is of its time, and they both appear totally committed.
Kate playing the long game, not sure about that. The one that played the long game was Camilla. Kate didn’t need to play the long game, she won the game by right of marriage to William.
Kate always looks lovely and appears to be a happy and supportive wife and mother, and extremely respectful of the Royal Family and its traditions, and she always does her duties with warmth and commitment.
Katherine might look stunning, but she’s a silent Queen in waiting and has a great deal of backbone, which William will need when it’s time for him to become king.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 