New Kate Middleton video unflattering for Prince William

The Prince and Princess of Wales have been filmed leaving a local shop and have accidentally revealed something about William.

COMMENT

Oh look, there it goes. History repeating itself.

Kate the Princess of Wales, the most-hunted, fizzed-over, single human being out of the 7.8 billion on the planet has been found alive and well and buying a stoneground wholemeal cob loaf. Quick, someone alert Interpol and the CIA!

The new footage, all 14 seconds of it, shows the princess and Prince William embracing their inner domestic deities by shopping at their local Windsor Farm Shop (side note, what sort of discount do you think they get?) and within an hour of going live had racked up more views than the Zapruder film.

Kate Middleton has been filmed in public for the first time in months. Picture: The Sun / TMZ / News Licensing

She and Prince William were spotted shopping at a farm shop near their home at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor. Picture: The Sun / TMZ / News Licensing

Onlookers said the royal couple looked happy and relaxed. Picture: The Sun / TMZ / News Licensing

Will this brief clip do anything to even vaguely dispel the crackpottery and general derangement that has consumed the brains of even the most sensible sorts, like a sort of horribly postmodern form of encephalitis, about Kate?

No siree. But that does not mean a couple of pretty stark conclusions we can draw from the princess’ reappearance – and none of them particularly flattering for William.

There is a story that has done the rounds more often than Prince Andrew on a Bahraini golf course, about a particular scene that unfolded in 2010. William had finally decided to Do His Bit and to marry longtime girlfriend Kate, both because it was high time he fulfilled his dynastic job requirements and because she was a top sort.

At this point William, having witnessed the insanity that had engulfed his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, in a scene that I’m imagining was full of moving words, moist eyes and the future King kneeling on the Middletons’ shag-pile rug in supplication, made a promise to Kate’s parents Carole and Michael. According to the Sunday Times, he vowed to the Party Pieces impresarios that “he would protect [Kate] to the best of his ability when she joined the royal family.”

Prince William is said to have promised Carole Middleton that he would protect Kate when he married her. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Less than two years later, in 2012, when topless photos of Kate taken when the couple were indulging in that key royal pastime of a freebie holiday in France, were splashed about the place William was left “scarcely able to control his fury,” according to the Times.

As esteemed biographer Valentine Low wrote at the time, William had “determined long ago that no one who shared his life would have to endure such an unwarranted assault on their privacy”.

So much for being able to protect his wife.

Now, in 2024, history is doing that pesky thing of repeating itself. Bigger, better and far, far worse.

As this week’s startlingly amazing photo – ‘Woman buys organic honey shock’ – demonstrates, so much for William’s no doubt heartfelt pledge to safeguard and shield his good lady wife.

Despite the prince’s best intentions and all of this passionate vowing I’m imagining him doing (go on, it’s quite fun to picture it) so much of this current hullabaloo can be traced back to the original hard line decision in January made by William to protect the princess while she underwent and later recovered from abdominal surgery. The 42-year-old needed peace, quiet and to be let off the hook from having to visit a single youth drop-in centre in some grey bit of Sheffield. William would see to it. It would be tranquillity, drawn curtains and clear broth all the way.

Which is why Kensington Palace popped up back then, put out a brief statement and made it clear that they would not be offering running updates on how well her stitches were healing.

Only thing. This vacuum, this black hole of information about the Princess of Wales, only allowed the maddest of the mad to really take root and flourish.

When Kate went for treatment in January the palace said she would be out of the public eye until Easter. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Even as the weeks passed and the online chatter grew to a roar, William reportedly remained intransigent and dug himself in. As an official spokesperson said in early March (my how long ago that feels) of the Prince of Wales, “his focus is on his work and not on social media”.

And still the chattering, tapping horde, especially TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) continued to work itself up into a bigger and bigger lather. The arrival of March brought with it what can only be described as a cataclysm, and one which took the palace completely and utterly unawares. Those fringe rumblings detonated and within a matter of hours, Kate had vaulted to become an all-consuming focus of global conversation and even global news coverage.

The princess has monopolised the Zeitgeist for weeks now with no sign of respite any time soon.

And still throughout this all, William just pouted (well, I’m imagining.) His position certainly did not shift a jot. No Kate updates were given.

One interpretation of this is that he was living up to his word and protecting her. Another is that he was inadvertently feeding the beast that has only made all this so very much worse.

With Mother’s Day rolling around, the couple seemingly decided to try and intervene by releasing a shot of the Princess of Wales with their trio of tiny HRHs, an image taken by William, things of course only got about 84646 per cent worse. We all know what happened – Kate tinkered with the image in Photoshop, it got released, only for the world’s major picture agencies to issue kill notices over it being “manipulated”, a drastic move usually released for whatever the Iranian and North Korean state media agencies have been cooking up. (Truly.)

The Mother’s Day image of Kate and their kids taken by William achieved the opposite of what was intended. Picture: Prince of Wales/Kensington Palace/Handout/Getty Images

The prince manfully let his wife absorb the full shock of the world’s doubt and anger while he got to stick to his day job of trying to save the melting ice caps and prevent the incipient creep of republican feeling.

An apology was duly released, one in which Kate and Kate only took the full rap and brunt, an embarrassing bit of painfully public penance unlike anything seen before. (And hopefully after too.)

Dolly Parton warbled about standing by her man – why didn’t William stand by Kate?

All of this was bad enough and then came this week’s Great Farm Shop Outing. Video of it shows the Waleses over the weekend stocking up on bramble jelly or something and carrying their own plastic bags, a development of such significance President Joe Biden was probably quietly informed mid-nuclear briefing.

If there is one thing that these new shots drive home is the prince is continuing to fail his wife.

Prince William appears to be failing to “protect” his wife Kate Middleton. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

On the weekend, the Sunday Times’ Roya Nikkhah reported that “those close to William say that the family ‘bubble’ he and Kate have created at their home in Windsor, Adelaide Cottage, is his top priority.

“What [the prince] has found especially challenging in recent weeks, say friends, is the feeling that the couple’s bubble is coming under threat, and that his wife is experiencing some of what his mother went through.”

Therefore, of these farm shop images, either the Waleses popped out to stock up on lavender honey knowing they would end up being filmed by some quietly hyperventilating member of the public, thus meaning these shots have their tacit approval, thus meaning the couple made the decision to ‘feed’ Kate to the world.

So much for all that vaunted ‘protecting’.

Or the second way to read this is that for all of the family “bubble” being the Prince of Wales’ “top priority”, it Is really not up to much chop if a quick dash to buy locally-made chutney can pop it.

From word go this year, William has clearly only ever wanted to guard his wife and to try and minimise the heat, the attention, and the pressure on Kate. But you know what they say about best intentions. What has ended up happening throughout this year’s débâcle de la Wales is that when push has met shove, that promise that the prince made all of these years ago (see: shag-pile carpet) has proven a hollow sort.

The sad fact is the Prince of Wales is obviously intent on trying to screen the Princess of Wales off from prying eyes and leering lenses but I’m not sure he can. It’s one thing to desperately want to protect Kate and it’s another thing entirely to be able to deliver on that.

Let’s hope all that chutney was worth it.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.