Wait... Prince William is now more popular than Kate Middleton?

Prince William has narrowly beat his wife Kate Middleton to take the coveted title of Britain's second most popular member of the Royal Family. 

• A new YouGov poll has found that Prince William is more popular among the British public than his wife, Princess Catherine, is. 
• Queen Elizabeth still reigns as the most popular member of the family, with Prince William and Princess Anne snagging second and third place, as Kate Middleton sits fourth in the line up. 
• In other royal news, Prince George could be set for special overseas trip very soon but it might mean deciding where his loyalties lie.

You could have fooled us, but apparently Prince William is more popular than his wife, Kate Middleton. That's according to a new YouGov poll that states the Prince of Wales has a 67% popularity rating while Kate sits just below him at 62%.

Yes, despite the massive interest in the Princess of Wales, whether it's for her work in early childhood development or for her stunning choice of outfits such as her pale pink high-collared coat or her red floral belted dress that epitomised back-to-school chic, the royal is still less popular than her husband. 

Perhaps we're being too harsh on the Prince. He has remained 'stubborn optimist' despite the trials thrown at him recently which is admirable and we can relate to his 21-year-old self's excessive birthday party decorations. Plus, he did impress on his latest magazine cover alongside Kate. So we can understand why people love him so much, but Kate holds a special place in our hearts. 

Queen Elizabeth II took the top spot with a popularity rating of 76% while Princess Anne, who recently stepped out in a bold scarlet jacket and fun matching hat, sits between William and Kate with a rating of 63%.

The poll also found that both William and Kate are more popular than King Charles III, who has a popularity rating of only 55%. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sit further down the list, with ratings of 27% and 29% respectively.

The poll also measured how 'famous' each royal is seen as being by the public, documenting how many people 'have heard of' a particular royal. Again, William beat Kate by a huge margin. 

According to the poll, 99% of participants knew who William was while only 89% knew of Kate. That put William in the second highest spot again while Kate was bumped down drastically to 11th behind Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and even Princess Eugenie. 

The results of the YouGov poll might not come as too much of a surprise. Prince William, while taking a top spot this time, has seen his and Kate's popularity waver slightly since the release of Prince Harry's memoir Spare, which came out earlier this year. 

In January this year, a poll by Ipsos Mori found that, following the memoir's release, William's rating dropped by eight percentage points, while Kate's dropped by seven percentage points. The dip still left the pair as two of the most popular royals, with 61% of participants saying they had a positive opinion of William, and 60% saying the same of Kate.

However, media and crisis management expert Anthony Burr believes the lowered ratings may have rattled the Royal Family and the new YouGov poll probably hasn't helped settle their minds. 

He believes they still have some recovering to do after the issues raised by Harry and Meghan came to light and said that their longstanding motto of 'keep calm and carry on' would only work to harm the family in the long run. 

He told The Express, "The whole ethos has always been don't react, carry on, business as usual, but I think they need to up it now, be more visible, and appeal to the younger generations more, who have the fate of the Royal Family in their hands.

"If you start having a big movement of young republicans that could be the death knell for the Royal Family. But if they work on this agenda they are going to be fine."