On September 8, 2022, the day Queen Elizabeth died, Kate Middleton became the Princess of Wales. Yet it seems that—for a time, at least—the princess was unsure about inheriting arguably the most famous royal title.
According to a new book by journalist Robert Jobson, Catherine, the Princess of Wales, Middleton found the prospect of sharing a title with the late Princess Diana daunting. “In marrying the elder son of Prince Charles, Catherine was aware she’d one day have to tread in her late mother-in-law’s footsteps—but the prospect of becoming the Princess of Wales held little appeal,” he wrote. “She knew she’d inevitably be compared with Diana, whose untimely death had provoked such a tsunami of anger and grief. And she was right. The similarities and differences between the two women were dissected ad infinitum, and even discussed in the royal household.” According to Jobson, Catherine considered opting for another title entirely.
She eventually changed her mind and assumed the title upon her father-in-law’s ascension to the throne in 2023. However, the Princess of Wales is far from the first royal who has worried about the long shadow of Princess Diana.
Camilla Parker Bowles, now Queen Consort, famously chose not to use the title due to its associations with Diana. It wasn’t necessarily the comparisons she worried about, but the blowback: Camilla and Prince Charles had an affair while he was still married to the late princess. In the ’90s, the illicit news was broken explosively in Andrew Morton’s book, Diana: Her True Story, whose primary (if off-the-record) source was Diana herself. Two years later, Charles admitted to the affair on national television. Camilla became a tabloid villain and was deeply unpopular with the British public, who adored Diana.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Camilla’s reputation largely remained that of the “other woman.” Sentiment finally began to shift after she married Charles in 2005—yet she still refused the Princess of Wales title. Camilla was keenly aware of its association with Diana—who had died just eight years earlier—and equally conscious that many blamed her for ruining Charles and Diana’s marriage. (“Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Diana famously told the BBC in 1995.) Instead, Camilla opted to go by the more neutral title of the Duchess of Cornwall.