Can you be sent to the Tower for saying that the Princess of Wales is slaying it? I’ll risk my neck, because at the coronation there was no other word. She played her part spectacularly well. As she stood outside Westminster Abbey, in the pouring rain, a friend I was watching it with whistled admiringly. “She looks,” he said simply, “magnificent.” If ever a woman faced a date with destiny, it was her. If ever a woman rose to it, she did. When rumors started circulating a week or so before the ceremony that she was going to wear flowers in her hair, I thought: “Oh no. Please don’t. It’s a coronation, not Woodstock.” I needn’t have worried.
The Princess of Wales knows exactly what she’s doing. As of last weekend there is no longer any trace of the slightly nervy, unremarkable middle-class girl from the home counties. Somewhere along the way Kate Middleton has acquired more star power and charisma and regal bearing than all the other royals combined. How ironic that Prince Andrew bangs on about his “blood princess” daughters, but it’s actually the girl from Berkshire who makes the monarchy look exciting and relevant.
