Kate Middleton, the woman who reached the top and conquered the British | International

Kate Middleton (Reading, UK, 42) climbed thousands of covers and front pages until she reached a height where criticism was no longer heard. Just signs of admiration. When she revealed that she was undergoing chemoprevention treatment to stop the cancer she suffers from, the blow was not on her, but on all the media and the anonymous, and not so anonymous, characters on social networks who made fun of her. her for two months, at the cost of your health.

Before half the world knew her as the Duchess of Cambridge, first; Princess of Wales, later: and still as the wife of the heir to the throne, William of England, she was able to climb with her father, Michael Middleton, Mont Blanc, the star summit of the Alps and the highest point of Western Europe. . He belonged to a family of athletes who did not shy away from challenges.

“Over the years we have climbed many mountains together. As a family, we will also climb this one with you,” Middleton’s brother, James William Middleton, wrote this Friday on his Instagram account, accompanied by an old photo of the two of them, in which they are still two smiling children in the middle of nature.

Just after her courtship with Charles and Diana’s eldest son was revealed, the cruelty of the British tabloid press took advantage, in a very different sense, of Kate’s ascendant abilities. She and her sister, Pippa, were baptized – with that sexist stench that the British tabloids have never gotten rid of – as the “wisteria sisters” (the “wisteria sisters”), in reference to this plant so popular on the facades of London residences: it is beautiful and decorative, it has an intense scent… and it climbs quickly, the joke goes.

“Wait Katy.”, they called her too. Something like ‘Katy, the one who waits’, to make fun of the young woman who had been desperately waiting for years for Prince William to decide to propose marriage to her. They called it commoner (commoner), and they questioned her nerves in public, her shrill voice, and her boring wardrobe. Years of eccentricity and exoticism, modeled on Lady Di, had created a generation of scandalous, tearaway tabloid monarchists in whom conservative, conventional, anodyne character was not valued. Despite the fact that it is precisely these characteristics that were most admired in the late Isabella II.

Years back

Until the series The crown (Netflix) adhered to the theory according to which Carole Middleton would have carefully sculpted the social trajectory of her daughters, always towards the top. She was responsible for the decision to withdraw Kate from Edinburgh University, when she was barely a year old, and send her to St. Andrews, where Prince William had just gone. ‘register, and where their courtship eventually took shape.

The wedding took place on April 29, 2011 at Westminster Abbey. Since then, Middleton has continued to take the appropriate steps, at least for that part of conservative and traditional British society that wants a monarchy with all its conventions. Devoted motherhood – the couple have three children: Jorge, Carlota and Luis -, unconditional support for her husband, an initial devotion to Isabel II which she then transmitted to her father-in-law, King Charles III, and a correction neat when he appears at public events. All the attributes required for a future queen.

Some critical voices saw more calculation than naturalness in his behavior. Hilary Mantel, the writer idolized by many Britons for her Tudor trilogy, defined Kate as “a precision object” with no apparent flaws, very different from a Lady Di who “showed her human clumsiness and emotional incontinence in every gesture. But citizens addicted to the daily life of royalty, or those who simply wanted as little extravagance as possible from their institutions, learned to love a woman who fulfilled the obligations corresponding to her position with rigor and good spirit. The Windsors always knew that a smile was a more powerful communication weapon than any public statement, and Kate hasn’t stopped smiling over the years.

When she admitted to writer Giovanna Fletcher that she felt “slightly terrified” while presenting newborn Prince George to the media from the hospital stairs in 2013 – a tradition imposed on all women in the royal family, which only Meghan Markle has decided to break up. — Kate followed the rule that worked so well for her mother-in-law, Elizabeth II: obligations, always before needs, “because it was really important to be able to share the joy of this moment with the citizens,” said explained Middleton.

In recent days, the Princess of Wales has discovered that citizens are insatiable when it comes to sharing. The joys are not enough for him. He also wants sanctions. Despite her initial resistance and desire to protect the marriage’s three children, Middleton chose to explain her current health and anguish to the world. And in doing so, she has returned to the pinnacle that it took her so much effort to reach: the only place where she can feel protected.

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