The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate, appear to have a solid and happy relationship, which has led a prominent royal historian to suggest that the couple may have broken the cycle of marital failure that has blighted the royal family in recent decades.
Almost all families suffer from problematic marriages that often break down, and the Royal family appears to be no different in that respect; however, it seems that one couple, William and Kate, are bucking the trend.
Royal historian Robert Lacey recently wrote for People that the “House of Windsor has an abysmal track record of marital failure, but William has broken the cycle.”
The Royal family has suffered numerous troubled marriages
William’s parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana had a famously disastrous marriage that was rife with accusations of infidelity. The pair had married to much fanfare in 1981, but it all came crashing down with a contentious divorce in 1996. Charles then married his current wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, in 2005.
Charles’s sister, Anne, the Princess Royal, also suffered marital breakdown when her first marriage to Mark Phillips ended with a divorce in 1992 after 19 years of marriage. That same year, she married Timothy Laurence, and they’ve been together ever since.
The marriage of younger brother Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, also collapsed after just ten years with a divorce in 1996. Clearly, the 1990s were a decade of flux for royal marriages.
But then along came the next generation. William and Kate seem to have turned things around; they recently celebrated tens of years of marriage and a whopping 18 years together.
Is Kate the secret to their lenghty relationship?
And what is the secret to their lengthy marriage? Well, according to Lacey, it’s mostly down to Kate, who he described as an “empathetic outsider from middle-class origins.” Essentially, Kate is seen by many as a down-to-earth commoner who has brought some pragmatic and practical attributes to the monarchy.
According to the Daily Express, William and Kate first met while in college at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland in the early 2000s. The pair were close pals for quite a long time before they became an item, but the Prince has said this gave their relationship a solid foundation.
The future king finally proposed to Kate in 2010 when they were in Kenya, and they eventually married in 2011. Kate’s long wait for an engagement ring led to the tabloids dubbing her “Waitey Katie.”
And according to some, the relationship has suffered problems. Royal biographer Andrew Morton has claimed that the future Duchess felt “taken for granted” during the early years of her dating relationship and that she found William’s domineering behavior overwhelming and felt she was being unfairly treated. The pair even ended their relationship in 2007, albeit very briefly.
However, since then, the couple has gone from strength to strength. The Duke and Duchess have shown that they work very well together; this summer, they launched their own YouTube Channel, and their onscreen chemistry is instantly apparent.
Here’s to many more happy years for William and Kate.