Kate Middleton's sweet three word message for Prince William caught by lip reader reveals something about her role
The brief moment highlights a quality in the Princess that could explain why many have likened her to Prince Philip
Catherine, Princess of Wales was just one of the senior royals who gathered for the National Service of Remembrance on Sunday.
Coming together with war veterans and key figures representing the Armed Services and honouring those who have served, the annual service held at the Cenotaph is one of the most sombre and important in the royal calendar.
As Prince William, dressed in the uniform of the Lieutenant Colonel of the Household Cavalry, laid his wreath down, a lip reader suggested that Catherine said to Queen Camilla, "He’s so natural."
Speaking to the Daily Express, lip reader Nicola Hickling said, “We all know how much Catherine loves to see William in a uniform. After he places the poppy wreath at the cenotaph, the camera pans to her and Catherine turns to her and says, ‘he’s so natural’.”
Princess Catherine was watching from a balcony above the Cenotaph in the Foreign Office, wearing a bespoke black Catherine Walker coat, a Jane Taylor hat, the Collingwood Pearl drop earrings that once belonged to the late Princess Diana, and her HMS Glasgow brooch, which signifies her role as the Lady Sponsor of the Royal Navy warship.
There’s much to be observed from the Princess’s reported three-word praise for her husband. Not only is it a touching reminder that, despite being by his side for 15 years of marriage (and counting), the future queen still admires the solemnity and the seriousness of the role she knows her husband represents.
However, more than that, it suggests the Princess is more than happy to play a supportive and understated role - an acknowledgement of the importance of being a steadfast consort and something which she may have observed from Prince Philip.
Having been by the late Queen Elizabeth’s side for 73 years, Prince Philip is often held as the example of what being a consort should look like - he was there for the monarch, and he understood the importance of their duty above all.
Indeed, royal experts have drawn comparisons between Philip and Kate’s understanding of the importance of their roles in the past.
“In one sense [Kate] and William’s was a modern royal marriage, in that it was a love match. But in another it has been old-fashioned. She mostly appears as a supportive figure to her husband,’ Sarah Gristwood, author of Elizabeth: The Queen and the Crown previously shared to PEOPLE.
In the same interview, royal biographer Penny Junor drew the parallels more distinctly. She suggested, “She’s never trying to outshine him in any way. I think that Kate is a bit like Prince Philip supporting the Queen. She doesn’t outshine William but still has a lot to say herself."
It shouldn’t come as a surprise if Kate has been inspired by the late Prince Philip - According to Gyles Brandreth, writing in his 2021 book, Philip: The Final Portrait, the Prince would reportedly help mentor new family members, including Kate and Duchess Sophie.
In fact, one of Kate’s reported ‘golden rules’ she follows to this day was inspired by William’s grandfather - that the royals should focus on the tasks at hand and not be caught up in fanfare or looking for the camera.
Philip is said to have thought, "If you believe the attention is for you personally, you're going to end up in trouble. The attention is for your role, what you do, what you're supporting. It isn't for you as an individual. You are not a celebrity. You are representing the Royal Family. That's all."
Speaking of his own first-hand experience with the Princess of Wales, Gyles revealed, “She does not look at the camera. Whenever she is interviewed, Catherine talks about the matter in hand, never about herself."
