What Kate should know | 16 November 2010

CoffeeHousers, you may have heard: Prince William and Kate Middleton are going to marry. Even now, the news helicopters are cluttering the sky above St. James’s Park. and their overhead imagery is punctuating the breathless television coverage below. As it happens, The Spectator dealt with this story in 2006, with a piece by Patrick Jephson, Diana’s former private secretary, on what Kate Middleton can expect from marriage into the royal family. One or two of its references – such as, “It isn’t just Woolworth’s who are jumping the gun with souvenir wedding plates” – may have dated, but the future Princess Catherine may still care to read it:

What Kate should know, Patrick Jephson, The Spectator, 30 December 2006

‘Perhaps Miss Middleton … will be our future queen,’ I speculated in a Sunday newspaper nearly three years ago. The editor was more cautious. ‘More likely, she will not,’ he made me add.