Prince William reportedly reacted angrily when King Charles III and Queen Camilla suggested that Kate Middleton change the spelling of her first name after joining the royal family, according to a new book about the .
Why William reportedly went ‘guns blazing’ to defend Kate over her name
In his biography Kate! The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen, author Christopher Andersen claims the proposal was linked to concerns about royal branding and the number of royal cyphers beginning with the letter C.
“Charles and each had a royal monogram that consisted of interlocking C’s beneath a crown, and they expressed concern that a third royal cypher with a C was overkill. Would Kate mind if she changed the spelling of her full name from ‘Catherine’ to ‘Katherine.’,” Christopher Andersen wrote in his biography Kate! The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen.
According to Andersen, William objected strongly to the suggestion and defended his wife.
“Offended by yet another command from on high essentially aimed at placating Camilla, a fuming William replied on his wife’s behalf. The request was nothing less than ‘insulting,’ he told his father, not only to Kate but to her entire family.”
Andersen said the episode highlighted the importance of image and branding within the .
“The entire nature of Charles and Camilla’s request — that Catherine was adding too many C’s to the royal crests — shows just how much image and branding means to members of the royal family. The monarchy really is a giant game of one-upmanship,” Andersen told .
He added that from the beginning of William and Kate’s relationship, “William has gone to war for Kate.”
Andersen said William’s principal concern for the has consistently been her “safety”, while citing another example of his defence of her after topless photographs of her sunbathing were published in France in 2012.
“He angrily ordered Palace lawyers to sue and even wanted to see those involved prosecuted criminally under French privacy laws. When they started a family, it was William who made sure that Kate was not forced to take on too heavy a royal workload if it meant that she would have to spend too much time away from their children,” Andersen said.
The author claimed Charles and Camilla expected Kate to accept the proposed change because of her public image as a cooperative member of the royal family.
But, he said the king and Camilla “expected her to go along because she has always been a nice, cooperative team player … but didn’t take into account the fact that she personally prefers to be known as Catherine and feels very strongly about the name her parents gave her.”
Although she is widely known publicly as Kate, the Princess of Wales’ formal first name is Catherine.
Andersen said the princess remains “genuinely fond” of Charles and believed he may have received the suggestion from another person rather than conceived it himself. He added that she did not harbour resentment towards the King.
“Kate is very secure about who she is and how she wants to be perceived by the outside world,” Andersen said. “Changing her formal given name for such a bizarre, almost comical reason was a bridge too far.”
and photographer Helena Chard described the proposal as a “nonstarter” and a “lost cause”, arguing that Charles and Camilla may have approached the issue from a branding perspective because the princess was already widely known as Kate.
“Although a hopeless endeavour, I can see both sides of the coin,” she admitted, explaining that William was reportedly offended not only on behalf of his wife but also her family.
The claims form part of Andersen’s account of the Princess of Wales’ relationship with the wider royal family and her position within the monarchy.
