Did Kate Middleton’s mum really set her up with Prince William? The Crown depicts Carole Middleton orchestrating the relationship, but in reality ‘Kate did not resist’, say royal experts

Dec 24 , 2023

=== PHOTO CAPTURED ONLINE=== Kate Middleton (left) and Carole Middleton (right). Photo: @its.catherine.theprincess / Instagram

Netflix’s hit TV show about the British royals is not always rooted in reality – for instance, a teenage Kate Middleton and her mum Carole never ran into Prince William and Princess Diana in London

‘The British Kris Jenner’? The Crown depicts Kate resisting her mum’s plan for her to get together with the prince, but royal experts such as Omid Scobie claim she was in agreement

Kate Middleton and Prince William’s romance is brought to the forefront in the final instalment of Netflix’s The Crown.

Released on December 14, the episodes take viewers back to Kate and William’s early courtship during their time at St Andrews University in Scotland.

At times, the show takes a hard detour from reality for entertainment purposes – like the scene where a 15-year-old Kate and her mother Carole Middleton are shown having a chance encounter with Prince William and Princess Diana on the streets of London. But that never happened.

The Crown starring Meg Bellamy (left) and Ed McVey. Photo: @megkbellamy/Instagram

But a royal historian also says that’s far from the only aspect of Kate and William’s relationship that was invented for The Crown.

Clare McHugh, a royal historian and author of the upcoming novel The Romanov Brides, says that a scene in episode seven where Kate (Meg Bellamy) confronts Carole (Eve Best) about her plan to get her daughter close to William (Ed McVey) is pure fiction.

Not only that, McHugh said that Kate and Carole worked together to capture William’s attention at university.

“What is interesting to me is that The Crown did not shy away from showing Carole as insistent that Kate kept going,” McHugh said. “I think the only part where they faltered was when they had Kate resisting a bit.”

“The two of them were as one all along,” she added.

Carole’s plan is laid bare in the scene where Kate tells her mother that her relationship with another student Rupert Finch (Oli Green) is “serious”.