Kate Middleton breaks Queen’s conversational rules on Denmark trip with ‘unsure’ hand gestures

Kate Middleton broke one of the Queen's biggest conversation rules in Copenhagen yesterday, after revealing her 'anxiety' with 'unsure' hand gestures. 

• Kate Middleton leaked her 'anxiety' with 'unsure' gestures in Copenhagen yesterday, a body language expert has claimed. 
• The Duchess of Cambridge's demeanor—while undeniably warm—was in stark contrast with the Queen's stoic disposition at public engagements. 
• In other royal news, Queen to miss important meeting with the Prime Minister as she cancels engagements due to COVID symptoms.
  

Kate Middleton has broken one of Her Majesty's most important social rules at public engagements, after leaking her 'anxiety' with 'unsure' gestures.

It was revealed last week how the Queen breaks 'conventional rules of communication' with her stoic stance—a trick she learned early in her reign to establish her steely reputation. The 95-year-old typically refrains from 'mirroring' other people's body language in conversation, choosing instead to remain still and composed throughout the interaction. 

Unfortunately, it looks like Kate Middleton hasn't quite mastered the monarch's dominant demeanor just yet. 

The Duchess displayed "a couple of gestures" on Tuesday that may indicate "potential feelings of nerves" or "anxiety" about the Royal Family's ongoing crises, according to a body language analyst. 

Kate Middleton arrived in Denmark yesterday afternoon for a two-day-long solo trip to promote her Early Childhood Education foundation and meet with the Scandinavian country's own Royal Family. The exciting engagement marks the 40-year-old's first overseas work engagement since March 2020, when she visited Ireland with Prince William. 

The Duchess appeared smiling and chatty throughout the day, but beneath the surface, she may not have been feeling entirely comfortable. 

"In one pose, Kate has both hands on the handle of her bag and is holding it in front of her torso in a barrier gesture that makes her look less assured than she does when she is walking with the bag hanging at her side," Judi James told OK! magazine. 

"And when she sits at the table for her meeting at the university, she is the one in the group sitting with her hands on her lap rather than on the table like the others, giving them the edge in terms of signals of spatial dominance and status." 

James added that this stance "makes her look a little unsure, but then the world of the boardroom is not her natural habitat and hopefully she spread out a little as the meeting went on."

While there's no way to tell what was going through Kate's mind during the engagement, there's no doubt that she and Prince William have been through a stressful time recently. 

It was confirmed that the Queen has Covid on Sunday, 20 February, just a couple of weeks after Prince Charles tested positive for the virus for a second time. 

The news comes shortly after Prince Andrew's sex abuse case was settled out-of-court—a scandal that has severely damaged the Royal Family's reputation and shed questions over its future in modern Britain. 

With the Queen poorly and the Duke of York shunned, Kate and William are under extra pressure to represent the monarchy during this turbulent climate. They are also unable to depend on Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who stepped back as senior royals in January 2020, to pick up some of the responsibilities left unfilled in the Queen and Prince Andrew's absence.