Catherine Elizabeth Middleton (born January 9, 1982), now known as the Duchess of Cambridge, GCVO, is a member of the British royal family. Given that she is married to Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, who is second in line to the British throne, Catherine is a strong contender for the role of queen consort. Middleton was raised in the Berkshire village of Bucklebury after being born in Reading.
She attended St. Andrew’s School and Marlborough College before enrolling at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland to study art history, where she met her future husband, William, in 2001. Before their November 2010 engagement was made public, she worked in retail and marketing and did volunteer work. They tied the knot at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011. The couple has three children: Prince George, who is third in line to the throne, Princess Charlotte, who is fourth, and Prince Louis, who is fifth.
Kate Middleton’s Early Life
Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born on January 9, 1982, to affluent parents at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. On June 20th, 1982, she was baptized in the parish church of St. Andrew in Bradfield. Her parents, Michael Middleton (a former flight dispatcher) and Carole (née Goldsmith; born 1955) launched Party Pieces, a privately held mail order firm selling party supplies and decorations, in 1987. The company is reported to be worth £30 million.
Kate is the eldest of their three daughters. The Middleton family, who had established trust funds more than a century earlier, married into the British aristocracy and became wealthy in the early 20th century. Her great-grandmother, Olive Middleton, and other Middleton family members entertained members of the British royal family in the 1920s and 1930s. Her mother’s family are working-class people who trace their ancestry back to coal workers. There is her younger sister Philippa, and her younger brother James.
Kate Middleton’s Personal Life
Middleton and Prince William first met in 2001 when they were both undergraduates at the University of St. Andrews and living in St. Salvator’s Hall. She apparently drew William’s attention in 2002 when she walked the runway in a sheer lace outfit for a university charity fashion show. Supposedly, the couple started going out around 2003. Middleton lived in a flat with William and two other mates during their second year. Balgove House on the Strathtyrum estate was home for the two of them and their two housemates from 2003 to 2005.
Tabloid media attention on Middleton and her family increased dramatically after she graduated. Over the course of their relationship, the paparazzi were constantly taking pictures of the outside of her apartment and at her workplace. The Palace and Middleton’s attorneys issued several warnings. She attended William’s Passing Out Parade at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on 15 December 2006.
Their relationship finally came to an end in April of 2007. At the Concert for Diana in July 2007, she and William sat two rows apart with their families. Eventually, it was said that they were back together. Middleton first met Queen Elizabeth II at her cousin Peter Phillips’ wedding to Autumn Kelly on May 17, 2008, when she stood in for William at the nuptials.
Kate Middleton’s Career
Her father took a job with British Airways, and so in May of 1984, the family uprooted from their home in Bradfield Southend, Berkshire, and settled in Amman, Jordan. Middleton started her education in an all-English nursery. After moving back to Berkshire with her family in September 1986, she started kindergarten at St. Andrew’s School, a prestigious private institution located in the town of Pangbourne. Toward the end of her life, she began to board at St. Andrew’s every other weekend.
The Middletons settled in Bucklebury in 1995. She attended Downe House for her education. Middleton attended Marlborough College, a coeducational independent boarding school in Wiltshire, where she displayed her athletic prowess and rose to the position of captain of the women’s field hockey team. At Marlborough, she reportedly had surgery to remove a tumor from the left side of her head. In 2000, she earned three A-Levels, scoring highest in art and lowest in English.
She was accepted to the University of Edinburgh, but she decided to take a year off instead to study at the British Institute in Florence and travel to Chile as part of a Raleigh International program. To save money for college, she spent her summers working as a deckhand at the Port of Southampton. Middleton then decided to pursue her interest in art history by attending the University of St. Andrews in the Scottish county of Fife.
She dabbled with psychology for a while before deciding to devote herself to art history instead. She worked part-time as a waiter during her education. She earned a gold Duke of Edinburgh Award while she was a college student. Middleton participated regularly in The Lumsden Club’s annual fundraisers and community service programs. In 2005, Middleton earned a Master of Arts with a 2:1 Honors degree in art history from the University of St. Andrews.
Kate Middleton was warned not to have another child before announcing pregnancy with Prince Louis
In addition to Prince George and Princess Charlotte, Prince William and Kate Middleton also have a handsome young prince named Louis. It’s not uncommon for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to talk about their family, whether it’s to reveal Louis’s favorite celebrity or Charlotte’s favorite upscale snack.
They’ve made it a priority to give their three children a “normal” upbringing despite their famous parents; for example, they employ a “chat sofa” for discipline and Kate stays up late to bake birthday cakes. Nonetheless, William and Kate were cautioned against having any more children soon before they announced they were expecting their third. When Kate was in Warsaw, Poland, during her summer 2017 tour of Poland and Germany, she was reportedly handed a baby toy.
There’s speculation that she told William, “We’ll just have to have more babies!” after learning that George and Charlotte were already four and two. Shortly after, the Duke and Duchess were urged to rethink starting a family by the children’s advocacy group “Having Kids,” which advocates for a “sustainable and child-centered family planning strategy.”
Executive Director President Anne Green Carter Dillard said in an open letter that “the example the British Royal Family sets is tremendously important,” adding, “Your idea of having a larger family highlights compelling questions of sustainability and equality.” People having a lot of kids is not sustainable.
She went on to say that George and Charlotte are ‘likely to have lovely lives… the same can’t be said of every future child.’ They announced their pregnancy in September 2017, and two months later, in April 2018, their third child, Louis, was born. Fans of the royal family have been waiting for a fourth child from William and Kate, but during a visit to Northern Ireland last year, someone shouted, “Number four?” at Kate.
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