Both the Queen and Prince Charles had approved the 30-hour trip, which took place overnight on 27 April and was deemed so risky that a news blackout was imposed until after his return. Cynics claimed that aides had dreamed it up as a public-relations exercise to improve the prince’s battered image, but Clarence House insisted it had been planned before his helicopter joyrides had been exposed. Five days later, on 2 May 2008, William bowed out of the RAF and started a month-long break before an attachment to the Royal Navy. During that time, another royal would take the heat off him and spark a crisis within the family.
Chapter 24
Out of the Shadows
Sitting in a pew in the historic St George’s Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle, Kate Middleton shared a private joke with Chelsy Davy as they attended their first royal wedding in the presence of the Queen.
Wearing a pale-pink fitted jacket, a black Issa dress and a matching black pillbox hat with net veil, Prince William’s girlfriend slipped into the Gothic chapel on 17 May 2008 for the wedding of his cousin Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly.
Arriving alone, the 26-year-old brunette was representing her boyfriend at the first wedding of a grandchild of the Queen, as William had been forced to turn down the invitation because it clashed with a prior engagement. While she was at the royal wedding, he was 4,000 miles away in the foothills of Mount Kenya, awaiting the traditional Masai marriage ceremony of Batian Craig, the brother of Jecca, to Melissa Duveen.
Kate’s solitary appearance on such an important occasion underlined the extent to which she had been accepted by the royal family and, to many observers, indicated that it was only a matter of time before she became a royal bride. Her role at the wedding led to flurry of newspaper articles speculating about an imminent engagement, with one friend remarking that they thought there was ‘undoubtedly an understanding’ between the couple since the relationship’s revival that it would lead to marriage.
The wedding also marked a step forward in Harry’s then girlfriend Chelsy’s relationship with the family. She had attended her first official engagement earlier in the month when she had watched her boyfriend being awarded with a medal for his service in Afghanistan. But for Chelsy, who looked unusually demure in a black-and-white floral dress and matching black jacket, this was the first meeting with her boyfriend’s grandmother.
However, the two girls’ attendance at the event was overshadowed by a storm of controversy over the commercialisation of the royal family, as the newly-weds had made a £500,000 deal to allow their nuptials to be featured in Hello! magazine. Both William and Harry were said to be ‘deeply unhappy’ that their girlfriends were prominently featured in the coverage, splashed across 59 pages of the magazine, which stated: ‘Even the two glamorous royal girlfriends couldn’t take the spotlight off the bride on her big day.’ Despite having slipped in through a side door of the church, rather than entering through the famous West Steps, in order not to upstage the bride, the two girls were photographed 29 times between them, laughing together, letting their hair down on the dance floor and being entertained by Prince Harry. The two princes were not amused.
The marriage of the Queen’s grandson Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly, the Canadian daughter of a hairdresser and electrical retailer, was perhaps the most high-profile royal union since the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie Wessex on 19 June 1999. Although Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall had married the previous year, they had had a civil ceremony, which the Queen did not attend.
Organised by Margaret Hammond (a former assistant to Peter’s mother, Princess Anne, she came out of retirement for the occasion), the service was attended by all the senior members of the royal family, apart from Prince William. Yet when the couple first met, at the Montreal Grand Prix in 2003, Autumn had no idea the man she was dating was 11th in line to the throne. Peter did not tell her about his royal connections, and she only learned the truth while watching a television programme about Prince William.
Peter, 30, arrived at the chapel at 3.40 p.m., 20 minutes before his bride-to-be, wearing a morning suit and accompanied by his two best men, childhood friend Andrew Tucker and Ben Goss, a friend from Gordonstoun. Wearing a £7,500 Sassi Holford dress, a tiara loaned to her by Princess Anne, and a necklace and earrings given to her by the groom, Autumn walked up the slippery steps and into the church clutching her father’s arm ‘for dear life’ to the strains of ‘The Prince of Denmark’s March’ by Jeremiah Clarke. Autumn, who was PA to Sir Michael Parkinson, and a former promotions girl and actress, was attended by six bridesmaids in green Vera Wang dresses, including her childhood best friend Jackie Aubie and her future sister-in-law Zara Phillips.
The couple, who were married by the Dean of Windsor, Bishop David Conner, Autumn having converted from Catholicism to the Church of England to prevent Peter having to renounce his right to the throne, exchanged rings and vows.
Emerging from the chapel at 5 p.m., they left in a carriage for Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park, Queen Victoria’s favourite residence, which had been lent to them by the Queen for their reception, organised by Peregrine Armstrong-Jones, the party-planning younger half-brother of Lord Snowdon.
The couple joined their 300 guests at a wedding breakfast of potted Cornish crab with lobster butter, roasted rack of Welsh lamb and a choice of three puddings: molten chocolate fondant with salted caramel ice cream, coffee and hazelnut mousse with tiny sugared doughnuts or berries encased in a brandy snap. They cut their wedding cake, which had been made at Buckingham Palace and was laden with sugar-crafted lily of the valley and stephanotis, with a military sword belonging to Peter. After the Queen and Prince Philip departed, the wedding party withdrew to a marquee in the grounds, decorated with chrome lanterns, where they danced until the early hours to the sounds of a blues band.
It was a typical society occasion but one with a twist: the couple had sold the rights to coverage of the wedding, for an estimated £500,000, to Hello!, more usually home to the shenanigans of footballers’ wives and soap stars, raising disturbing questions over the status of minor royals, who do not perform public duties or draw money from the public purse, but do benefit from their connections. The couple had already given a 19-page interview on the eve of the wedding at Aston Farm, a cottage on Peter’s father’s estate adjoining Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire, but this was only the first of two articles on the marriage, the second covering the ceremony itself.
The deal, negotiated by the magazine’s fixer the Marquesa de Varela, provoked a storm of criticism after it emerged that Peter had discussed it in advance with his mother but failed to consult the monarch, who only learned about the contract – the first in royal history – after it had been signed. Even then, the royal family did not realise the extent of the magazine’s coverage, which included candid images of the royal family taken during the reception and evening party. The storm was exacerbated when it emerged that the newly-weds had final approval of the pictures used in the feature, including around a dozen of the Queen, although it is not known whether they approved these themselves or authorised someone else to do so on their behalf.
Four days after the royal wedding, Kate flew out to Mustique to meet William for a holiday that was widely tipped to prompt a proposal. By this stage, some bookies had stopped taking bets on whether an engagement would occur, saying it was a matter of when, not if, the couple sealed their union. They arrived on the Caribbean island on 21 May, almost two years to the day since they had spent a romantic week in the Robinsons’ villa and a year since they had been reunited. This time, they hired the exclusive £1,785-a-night Villa Alumbrera, set, like the Robinsons’ house, in the cliffs above Macaroni Beach on the east coast of the island. Owned by the widow of a Swedish mining tycoon, the glamorous house, which has featured in Architectural Digest, is one of the most secluded on the island, with breathtaking views of the sea and its own footpath leading to the beach. The couple stayed in a bedroom with its own private courtyard and outdoor shower
. The house also had a luxurious swimming pool, terrace bar, gazebo, tennis court, pavilion and games room – everything a young couple could wish for. However, when they returned to England a week later, there was still no sign of an engagement.
on Monday, 2 June 2008, Sub Lieutenant William Wales arrived at the Britannia Royal Naval College in Darmouth for the first day of a two-month attachment to the Royal Navy. He was the latest in a long line of royals, beginning with his great-great-grandfather George V, to be cadets at the college. His great-grandfather George VI also trained there, as did the Duke of Edinburgh, who fought at sea during the Second World War and is believed to have met the Queen in Dartmouth. William’s uncle Prince Andrew trained at the college before becoming a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War and Charles was there before his service in the Royal Navy, during which he commanded a minehunter.
For the next three weeks, William studied naval history and learned seamanship, trained alongside the Royal Marines on amphibious and mountain-welfare exercises, dived with a nuclear submarine and flew in all of the navy helicopters, including the Sea Harrier, the Lynx, the Sea King and the Merlin. On his first exercise, he was shown how to handle a 15-metre twin-engine picket boat on the River Dart. Wearing No. 4 dress, the navy’s version of combats, he took his turn to drop anchor on the harbour training ship Hindostan, a former minesweeper moored nearby. When he failed a bet to do it first time, he turned to his seven classmates and two instructors, saying: ‘That’s a crate of beer, then.’
Now seriously committed to Kate, the prince took every opportunity to travel the 224 miles back to London to visit his girlfriend, in contrast with his time in the Household Cavalry, when he preferred to party with his fellow officers. On his first weekend off, he and Kate joined friends at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel for the Boodles Boxing Ball, where four old Etonians were trading punches with Cambridge graduates to raise money for the Starlight Foundation, a charity set up by former Dynasty actress Emma Samms to grant the wishes of terminally ill children. Wearing black tie, the royal couple met up with Harry and Chelsy for a champagne reception, dinner and auction. Afterwards, they joined Guy Pelly, Thomas van Straubenzee, Jamie Murray Wells and Jecca Craig in ringside seats for the boxing.
The first match featured Jecca’s boyfriend Hugh ‘The Hitman’ Crossley, who lost out to Bear ‘The Pain’ Maclean. The group then watched William’s former classmate James ‘The Badger’ Meade, the son of the international showjumper Richard Meade, being beaten by Al ‘Bonecrusher’ Poulain, a former equerry to Prince Charles. Kate, who was wearing a stunning £1,000 pink Issa gown, floor-length and slashed to the navel, winced and covered her eyes during the fights, while William and Harry punched the air, showing their Help for Heroes wristbands, in support of a charity for wounded servicemen and women. The £100-a-ticket event was organised by their friend Charlie Gilkes, who also owned Kitts, the young royals’ new favourite nightclub. It raised £120,000 for the charity and granted the wish of cystic fibrosis sufferer Bianca Nicolas, 19, to sing at the event and meet Harry and William.
Kate was so touched by her encounter with Bianca that she decided she wanted to become involved with the charity, whose patron is Princess Alexandra, a cousin of the Queen. She suggested forging a link with Party Pieces, in order to hold kids’ parties and give party bags to 10,000 sick children in hospitals over Christmas. It was the first time Kate had publicly supported a charity, one of the prerequisites for a future princess. ‘I find it terribly exciting,’ Emma Samms told the Daily Mail. ‘We are extremely thrilled, as you can imagine. They will be supplying us with all of the decorations and toys to play with, and the children are all going to get party bags. I am looking forward to meeting up with Kate soon to thank her properly for what she has done for Starlight. It is such a huge donation. What a great thing they are doing – and what a great change it will make to these kids.’
The weekend after the Boxing Ball, William was down in London again for his investiture into the order of the Garter. Kate escorted him to the event, held at Windsor Castle on 16 June in front of the Queen and all his aunts and uncles. It was the first time that she had been to such a formal royal event – another significant milestone on the road to becoming a member of The Firm – but she could not keep a straight face. When William processed past the historic Galilee Porch on his way from the chapel to the castle, wearing a blue velvet cloak and a hat adorned with ostrich plumes, she and Harry burst into fits of giggles. William, however, managed to keep his composure for the annual Garter Day Service, in which he was awarded the highest honour the monarch can bestow, membership of the order renowned for its motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’, which translates as ‘Shame on him who thinks ill of it’.
Within two days, William was back at sea, spending 24 hours underwater on the nuclear submarine HMS Talent, taking part in an exercise to track down and destroy an enemy sub. Sleeping aboard the submarine, he spent time in the control room, next to the nuclear reactor, and saw the cruise missiles in the torpedo room. At the end of the stint, he was winched off the boat by a Sea King helicopter.
The next weekend spelled the end of the prince’s three weeks’ training with the navy, perfect timing as he was celebrating his 26th birthday on Saturday, 21 June. He and Kate spent the weekend with Harry and Chelsy at the Beaufort Polo Club near Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire. After watching England (captained by Luke Tomlinson, an old Etonian and close friend of the princes whose family owns the club) beat New Zealand in the Williams de Broë International Test Match, the couple danced the night away at the Boujis to Beaufort party in a marquee in the grounds. The following day, William and Harry joined Luke on the polo field with the Apes Hill Club Barbados team. They beat the Stobarts 5–3 in a charity match that raised £50,000 for the Countryside Foundation for Education and the Tusk Trust.
After his birthday weekend off, it was time for William to get serious. On Monday, 23 June, he began a five-week operation at the Type 23 frigate HMS Iron Duke, a 4,900-ton warship that was working with American Drug Enforcement Administration agents to track down cocaine smugglers during the hurricane season in the Caribbean. Once again, he was separated from his girlfriend. After just four days on the warship, armed US coastguards seized £40-million-worth of cocaine from a speedboat north-east of Barbados. William was on board the Lynx helicopter that spotted the 50-ft vessel and apparently played a key ‘planning and surveillance’ role in the seizure. Later, he took part in a hurricane disaster training exercise off the volcanic island of Montserrat, as one of the forward command team landing on the island.
While her boyfriend was on exercise, Kate went to her second royal wedding of the year without him, confirming her established position in the family. Wearing a floral dress and pale-blue fitted jacket with a black feather fascinator, a hair accessory favoured on recent occasions by the Queen and the Duchess of Cornwall, she joined guests on 19 July at the Queen’s Chapel in St James’s Palace for the marriage of Lady Rose Windsor, a great-granddaughter of George V and 23rd in line to the throne. The youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and William’s second cousin, Rose, 28, who works in the film industry (she is credited on one of the Harry Potter movies as an assistant in the art department), wore a Franka couture wedding gown and a tiara that had belonged to Queen Mary for her wedding to George Gilman, 26, the son of a former director of Leeds United Football Club.
During his five weeks out at sea, William barely spoke to his girlfriend, 4,500 miles away, let alone saw her. He was allowed to use his mobile telephone but reception out at sea was poor. By the time he disembarked on 2 August, he was desperate to see her. It was the longest they had been apart since they began dating at St Andrews five years earlier.
The couple were finally reunited in Mustique, where they had made their fond farewells two months earlier. It was the third time they had holidayed on the island. This time, they stayed on the western coast in the Villa Rocina, created by oliver Messel, who
was also responsible for Princess Margaret’s Les Jolies Eaux. The secluded house, owned by Venezuelan millionairess Violera Alvarez, had a dining gazebo on the veranda overlooking the ocean, a cinema and gym. With its master bedroom suite with steps leading straight onto the beach, it was an ideal getaway for the prince and his girlfriend, especially after his time spent holed up in a tiny cabin at sea. They spent their days relaxing by the pool, water skiing and sharing a ride on an inflatable ring. On their final night, they attended a gala dinner to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mustique Company, which runs the island, where they met up with Kate’s former bosses Belle and John Robinson.
As soon as they returned to British shores, the couple hit the town, keen to show off their golden suntans. Their first port of call was Raffles, round the corner from Kate’s flat in Chelsea. Leaving there at 3.45 a.m. On 15 August, Kate had a momentary lapse in decorum, flashing rather more of her tan than she intended when her multicoloured tunic dress rode up her thighs. William stumbled and almost fell on top of her.
A few weeks later, they flew out to Austria together for the wedding of Chiara Hunt; the doctor granddaughter of the late Baron Hunt of Fawley, she once posed for Country Life reclining naked in a bath full of lollipops. Chiara, the sister of their university friend olivia and of TV presenter Ben Fogle’s wife Marina, married Rupert Evetts, a Blues and Royals officer, on 6 September in Salzburg. It was the first time William had been able to attend a wedding with Kate that year, and the event gave the couple the chance to catch up with Lady Davina Windsor, the elder sister of Rose. Davina was there with her husband, Gary Lewis, a former New Zealand sheep shearer, whom she had married in 2004. It was now 16 months since Kate and William had got back together, but still there was no sign of a royal engagement
Soon afterwards, William began the final months of the military service that was intended to prepare him for his future role as head of the armed forces. Having spent a year in the army, four months with the RAF and two months with the navy, he was going on tour with Britain’s elite services – the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Unit – to learn about unconventional warfare, counter-terrorism and reconnaissance. He also spent time with the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, worked at the MoD and was attached to the Army Air Corps. It was a Boy’s Own dream for the prince, although he would not be on operational duties.
Kate Page 21