Prince William Fears ‘History Repeating Itself’

The Sunday Times report says that Kate has been supporting her children at Lambrook, the school which Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Louis all attend. She has also been cooking suppers for the family, but friends say what William has “found especially challenging in recent weeks…is the feeling that the couple’s bubble is coming under threat, and that his wife is experiencing some of what his mother went through.”

“They’re not like [Prince] Harry, obsessing and scrolling through Twitter, but they know it has broken through. They follow the news and see the BBC breaking news alerts,” one friend told the Times—apparently unable to make their point without taking a nasty, needless dig at Harry.

The friend added, “Social media has provided the media with plenty of content and the speculation around their marriage is just cruel. These are people with three small children going through the hardest time they’ve had to go through as a family, with that as an awful backdrop. They are trying to keep things as normal as possible for the kids, but it’s not easy.”

“Privately, he’s dealing with more than he has for a long time in his life and it’s tough to see. He is OK, but it is hard,” a friend told the Times of William, referring to not only Kate’s medical issues, but the impact of King Charles’ cancer diagnosis.

A source who has known Kate and William since their early days as a couple at St Andrews University in Scotland, told the Times that one of William’s “greatest fears” remains being all-too-aware of the “hounding” that happened to his mother Princess Diana, and “history repeating itself” with Kate.

The source added: “William has always made it clear he wants to shield his family and his friends from the madness of some media where he can. He is approaching this from his desire to protect Kate and his family, and not get drawn into the media and social media craziness. Kate is smart, tough, resilient, and has good common sense. They will keep their cool heads over it. The public should leave her to recover in peace and leave William to do both his job as the Prince of Wales and his job of looking after his wife and his family as best he can.”

The Times notes that the rumor-mongering became more frenzied after William pulled out of attending and speaking at his godfather King Constantine’s memorial service. A friend who knows why he pulled out doesn’t reveal that reason to the Times, but says, “He had no choice but to pull out, but the reaction was disappointing. That blew the lid off everything with people’s impatience to know what was going on. He’s not in ‘blaming the media’ mode. He’s just really upset that his wife is having to go through all of this with her recovery, and then having to think about making statements about a family photo.”

The Times says that when the palace initially said in January that Kate would likely not resume official duties until “after Easter,” they meant after their children’s school Easter holidays, not the Easter weekend itself. So, the paper extrapolates—the public can expect to see Kate out and about sometimes around April 17, although what her first engagement will be hasn’t been decided yet.

William and Kate have been “buoyed” by public support, the Sunday Timesreports, noting they will “keep calm and carry on,” as Queen Elizabeth was wont to do when engulfed by crisis after crisis.

“I don’t think they should engineer what they do next,” one royal insider in touch with William and Kate told the paper. “The royals are at their best when they get on with their job. Don’t strategize about how to recover ground lost over Photogate. Do what you were always intending to do, and when you take the next picture, make sure you take enough so you don’t have to use Photoshop.”