June 12, 2026

Kate Middleton's Secret Media Strategy, Prince William's Plans for Beatrice and Eugenie, and another Royal Wedding Ahead

Kate Middleton's Secret Media Strategy, Prince William's Plans for Beatrice and Eugenie, and another Royal Wedding Ahead

A new book argues that Princess Catherine has mastered modern royal image management through photography, family storytelling and carefully controlled access. We explore the claims and what they reveal about the future Queen. Plus, fresh reports suggest Prince William could take a tougher approach toward Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie when he becomes king, Daniela Elser examines the future of the York sisters, Lady Marina Windsor prepares for a royal wedding, and we remember the remarkable life of Lady Pamela Hicks.

Palace Intrigue is a daily British royal family podcast covering King Charles, Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton and the House of Windsor. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network.

WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:11.800
Ah Calorogus, shark, media, hell low, and welcome to Powers Intrigue.

2
00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:14.320
I am your host, Mark Francis. Normally the media is

3
00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:17.320
pretty united on the Kate is Wonderful front. However, Princess

4
00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:20.559
Catherine's carefully curated public image is the subject of a

5
00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:22.600
new debate ahead of the release of a book examining

6
00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:26.320
the role of women within the monarchy. Author Katherine Mayer,

7
00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:30.039
whose forthcoming book explores the experiences of royal women through history,

8
00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:32.960
argues that the Princess of Wales has been particularly effective

9
00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:36.679
in shaping her relationship with both the public and the media.

10
00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:39.560
Writing about the Future Queen Maya suggested Catherine has played

11
00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:43.200
the royal game more cleverly than anyone, through a combination

12
00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:47.920
of image management and carefully selected glimpses into family life.

13
00:00:48.039 --> 00:00:51.159
The author contrasted Catherine's public standing with that of Megan Markel,

14
00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:54.280
arguing that royal women are often compared against one another

15
00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:57.960
in ways that can be unfair to both irreproachable. Kate

16
00:00:58.079 --> 00:01:00.880
is held up in contrast to flayed Meghan, an outcome

17
00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:03.560
damaging for both women, even if Kate herself has played

18
00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:06.959
in a stute role at creating her public image, Mayor wrote.

19
00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.040
A key part of that image, according to the author,

20
00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.519
is Catherine's use of photography. Over the years, the princess

21
00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:16.840
frequently released photographs she has taken herself, particularly family portraits

22
00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:19.799
of Prince William and their children, George, Charlotte and Lewis.

23
00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:23.239
May argues that those images help create a sense of

24
00:01:23.319 --> 00:01:27.359
authenticity while giving a public controlled glimpse behind palace walls.

25
00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:32.200
Mayor argues those images help create a sense of authenticity

26
00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:35.840
while giving the public a controlled glimpse behind palace walls.

27
00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:38.959
Courtiers credit her with what has proved to be a

28
00:01:38.959 --> 00:01:41.599
wise strategy of providing the media with photographs of her

29
00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:44.599
family on a regular basis. She added that the images

30
00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:48.359
project authenticity and help present the Whales family as more relatable.

31
00:01:49.280 --> 00:01:52.439
According to Mayer, Catherine understands the power of visual storytelling

32
00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:55.640
and uses it effectively. There is no doubt she understands

33
00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:58.680
art and imagery as a tool of communication, the author wrote,

34
00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:01.879
noting that Catherine studied history at the University of Saint Andrew's.

35
00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:04.879
The comments come as Catherine continues to use photography as

36
00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:08.560
part of her public work and personal messaging, regularly releasing

37
00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:13.520
family photographs for birthdays, anniversaries in major royal milestones. Mayer's

38
00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:16.639
book Divide and Roll Royal Women in Their Battles examines

39
00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:19.879
the lives of several royal women across history and explores

40
00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:23.199
how they have navigated public scrutiny, power and perception within

41
00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:27.719
the monarchy. Whether one views Catherine's approach as strategic image

42
00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:32.039
management or simply a talented amateur photographer sharing family moments,

43
00:02:32.400 --> 00:02:34.599
the author argues, there is little doubt that Princess of

44
00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:38.719
Wales has become highly skilled a communicating through images. Part

45
00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:41.960
of the image control was not being photographed with controversial figures.

46
00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:44.840
A source told Rob Shooter that Kate and William made

47
00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:48.000
little effort to socialize with Beatrice and Eugenie at last

48
00:02:48.400 --> 00:02:51.039
weekend's royal wedding. There was no effort to mingle, no

49
00:02:51.159 --> 00:02:54.560
catching up, no private conversations, no attempt to create a

50
00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:58.039
family moment. The same source pointed to a brief interaction

51
00:02:58.120 --> 00:03:01.199
between William and Beatrice, saying that's quick kiss Prince William

52
00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:04.000
gave his cousin, Princess Beatrice as he arrived at the wedding,

53
00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:08.280
before he quickly walked away. Another insider alleged William and

54
00:03:08.319 --> 00:03:11.280
Kate weren't seeking them out, and they certainly weren't interested

55
00:03:11.280 --> 00:03:14.520
in being photographed with them. A further source went even further,

56
00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.520
claiming if it had been entirely William's decision, they wouldn't

57
00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:20.000
have been there. The invitation came from Charles and Anne.

58
00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:24.039
Daniela Elsa wondered about Beatrice and Eugenie writing for news

59
00:03:24.039 --> 00:03:26.520
dot com Dot a You, Daniella tells us, for the

60
00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:28.560
last couple of decades, the Yorks have looked like they

61
00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.680
had won the Royal lottery, nabbing all the shiny good parts,

62
00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:35.039
like the permanent invitations to Royal ascot, but never being

63
00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:37.759
expected to do the drudging, deeply dull parts of being

64
00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:40.560
an hr age, like having just spend a wet Wednesday

65
00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:44.360
making small talk with the Winchley Women's Institute. But now

66
00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:46.800
Beatrice and Eugenie could be about to face a true reckoning.

67
00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:50.439
They could see them being dumped from Princess Tom, turfed

68
00:03:50.479 --> 00:03:53.520
out of their royal palace homes and left go God

69
00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:56.439
forbid find their own tickets to Glyndenbourd The man who

70
00:03:56.439 --> 00:03:58.639
could be behind the hurtling down to Earth their cousin,

71
00:03:58.639 --> 00:04:02.080
Prince William, who just might be photograph warmly greeting Beatrice

72
00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.599
and their cousin Peter Phillips recent wedding. Looks like he's

73
00:04:04.639 --> 00:04:07.840
getting set to stage of pallace push on the chopping

74
00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:09.560
block when the new reign starts will be be and

75
00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:11.960
used as royal homes, the grand real estate they have

76
00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.360
been allowed to occupy for decades despite never having been

77
00:04:15.400 --> 00:04:19.079
working members of the royal family. This news has seemingly

78
00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:20.680
gone down in the UK about as well as a

79
00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:22.959
vegan Scott Jag, and William has proved he knows never

80
00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:25.199
to let a pr crisis go to waste. When he

81
00:04:25.279 --> 00:04:28.399
becomes king, his Kensington Palace team told The Times he

82
00:04:28.439 --> 00:04:31.839
will consider stopping letting non working royals live in crowned

83
00:04:31.879 --> 00:04:35.600
state properties. You hardly need to be a Royal kremlinologist

84
00:04:35.680 --> 00:04:38.160
to read the writing on the wall. The same goes

85
00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:41.319
for Beatrice and Eugenie's titles, despite their father being downgraded

86
00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:44.839
to nothing but a plebby Mister last year, a deeply

87
00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:47.560
deeply satisfying taking down a peg for the ages the

88
00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:50.800
gods have held on to theirs. Likewise, you have to

89
00:04:50.839 --> 00:04:52.720
wonder about the York's place in line of succession. They

90
00:04:52.720 --> 00:04:57.079
are currently ninth Beatrice in twelfth Eugenie and their children ten, eleven,

91
00:04:57.199 --> 00:04:59.800
thirteen and fourteen or sitting ahead of Princess Anne eighteen

92
00:04:59.839 --> 00:05:02.759
and it's Edward fifteen who under talk along with Edward's

93
00:05:02.800 --> 00:05:06.959
wife Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh Oney twenty six engagements

94
00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:11.319
in twenty twenty five and Beautyson Eugenie officially zero, a

95
00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:15.480
big fat zero. There are ongoing reports that Buckingham Palace

96
00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:17.560
in Downing Street are working on plans to officially remove

97
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:20.240
Andrew from the line of succession. So that's come to pass,

98
00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:22.759
and once King William's faces on the stamps, just what

99
00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:26.360
might happen to the Yorks more palasing just a moment.

100
00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:32.480
Lady Marina Windsor is set to become the second royal

101
00:05:32.519 --> 00:05:35.839
bride of twenty twenty six when she marries Nico McCaulay

102
00:05:35.959 --> 00:05:38.920
later this month. The wedding is scheduled for June twentieth,

103
00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:41.920
just two weeks after Peter Phillips and Harriet Sperling's wedding

104
00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:45.800
brought members of the royal family together in Gloucestershire. Lady

105
00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:49.160
Marina is the granddaughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Canton,

106
00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:52.560
first cousin of Queen Elizabeth, making her part of the

107
00:05:52.600 --> 00:05:55.680
extended royal family. She is the daughter of George Windsor,

108
00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:59.199
Earl of Saint Andrew's and Sylvana Windsor, Countess of Saint Andrews.

109
00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:02.240
Until two thousand and eight, Lady Marina was in the

110
00:06:02.319 --> 00:06:05.199
line of succession to the British throne. However, she lost

111
00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:08.199
her place after being received into the Roman Catholic Church.

112
00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:11.639
Changes to succession rules introduced years later did not restore

113
00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:15.040
places that had already been forfeited under the previous rules.

114
00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:19.759
Substacker Matta O fact took a moment to recognize Lady

115
00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:24.120
Pamela Hicks. Amanda Mada writes, Lady Pamela Hicks died on

116
00:06:24.199 --> 00:06:26.639
June fifth, twenty twenty six, at the age of ninety seven.

117
00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:30.279
The headlines have reached for the obvious framing cousin of

118
00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:33.439
Prince Philip, bridesmaid and lady in waiting to Elizabeth second,

119
00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:36.680
and all of that is true. Sally Bedel Smith, who

120
00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:40.879
interviewed her across multiple years, called her royal several times over.

121
00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:43.879
Through her father's side, she was a first cousin of

122
00:06:43.879 --> 00:06:46.680
Prince Philip, a third cousin of Elizabeth the Second and

123
00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:50.560
a great great granddaughter of Queen Victoria. As of this year,

124
00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:53.439
she was the oldest living descendant of Victoria and Albert.

125
00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:56.279
She was also a great niece of the last Empress

126
00:06:56.279 --> 00:06:59.600
of Russia, Alexandra Fyodorovna. All of which is to say

127
00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:02.480
that Lady Pamela's family tree ran straight through both the

128
00:07:02.519 --> 00:07:05.959
survival of one dynasty and the slaughter of another. But

129
00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:07.680
I want to make a slightly different case for why

130
00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:10.839
Lady Pamela's death is worth pausing on, because it isn't

131
00:07:10.920 --> 00:07:13.720
only the loss of a person who saw extraordinary things.

132
00:07:13.959 --> 00:07:16.120
It's the closing of a particular kind of royal life

133
00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:20.839
that the modern monarchy has very deliberately stopped cultivating. Lady

134
00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:23.600
Pamela belonged to a generation whose proximity to the sovereign

135
00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:26.240
was a function of blood and breeding, rather than a

136
00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:29.000
job application or an election. She didn't marry into the family,

137
00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:31.519
and she wasn't hired any sense would recognize. She was

138
00:07:31.519 --> 00:07:35.199
simply born into the bloodstream of European royalty and grew

139
00:07:35.279 --> 00:07:38.279
up within the inner circle. There are very few people

140
00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:40.639
left who can say that, and there will be fewer

141
00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:42.920
still by design of King Charles's vision of a slim

142
00:07:42.959 --> 00:07:46.720
down monarchy comes to pass in February nineteen fifty two.

143
00:07:46.759 --> 00:07:49.680
She was lady in waiting to Princess Elizabeth and Kenya

144
00:07:49.759 --> 00:07:52.319
during the Faithful Trip when George the sixth died and

145
00:07:52.519 --> 00:07:55.600
a princess walked down from the treetops as a queen.

146
00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:58.920
This is where the historian in me wants to slow down,

147
00:07:58.959 --> 00:08:02.800
because lady in waiting sounds decorative and was anything but.

148
00:08:02.839 --> 00:08:05.319
The role was a holdover from a much older court,

149
00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:08.720
the gentlewoman of the Georgian and Victorian households who were

150
00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:13.319
the human infrastructure of monarchy. They were the companions, secretaries, fixes,

151
00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:16.920
shock absorbers, and were drawn almost entirely from the aristocracy.

152
00:08:17.399 --> 00:08:20.800
They served as much out of dynastic obligation as aptitude.

153
00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:25.199
They were also the connective tissue that made a court lady.

154
00:08:25.199 --> 00:08:26.879
Pamela was one of the last of that line to

155
00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:28.879
serve at the very top on the most demanding tour

156
00:08:28.920 --> 00:08:32.120
of the modern monarchy ever attempted. The job belly exists

157
00:08:32.120 --> 00:08:35.360
in that form anymore. Elizabeth the Second's last ladies in

158
00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:38.039
waiting were reclassified after her death into something more like

159
00:08:38.080 --> 00:08:41.840
part time volunteers. Under Queen Camilla, they had been officially

160
00:08:41.879 --> 00:08:46.120
rebranded to Queen's Companions. She was, by the accounts now

161
00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:49.399
emerging no admirer of Diana and a quiet fan of Camilla.

162
00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.360
As a sensible, useful presence, she traded in the kind

163
00:08:52.399 --> 00:08:54.799
of detail that can bring monarchy to a human scale,

164
00:08:55.159 --> 00:08:58.399
the small complaints, the unflattering glimpses, the affectionate eye rolls,

165
00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:02.000
and knowing smirks of family. My favorite example came years

166
00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:05.080
earlier and turned the candor on herself. Attending the twenty

167
00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:07.639
eleven Cambridge wedding, she remarked that in a family as

168
00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:10.120
large as the Queen's, there comes a moment when you

169
00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:12.759
just have to have a cull and cut out all

170
00:09:12.759 --> 00:09:16.159
the people over eighty. It was a joke, so turned

171
00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:19.840
out of prophecy and there have it. Hey all this

172
00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:22.399
month more encouraging listeners of Palace Intrigue to help spread

173
00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:24.519
the word. If you're enjoining the show, tell a friend

174
00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:26.840
about us, Betty, Yeah, just share an episode with someone

175
00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:29.000
who loves following the royal family. You know who they are.

176
00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:32.399
Be sure to follow Palace Intrigue on Spotify and Apple

177
00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:35.200
and turn on notifications so you never miss an episode,

178
00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.240
and we'd love to hear your thoughts on today's stories.

179
00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:40.360
You can leave comments for us on Spotify. My Mike

180
00:09:40.399 --> 00:09:44.080
Frantis thanks to John McDermott. This is Palace Intrigue, Good Times,