In Spare, Prince Harry described the moment in 2017 when he spoke to his father and brother about wanting to marry then-Meghan Markle. Then-Prince Charles asked after Meghan, and then asked if she planned to “carry on working” because, as Harry quoted his father, “you know there’s not enough money to go around…I can’t pay for anyone else. I’m already having to pay for your brother and Catherine.” Harry flinched at the mention of Charles using the name “Catherine” because, in Harry’s words, “I remembered the time he and Camilla wanted Kate to change the spelling of her name, because there were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested.” Well, you know how all of the royalists read Spare and have spent the past three years retelling Harry’s stories with their own keen twists? Well, here’s Christopher Andersen’s version of the “Catherine should be Katherine” story.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla requested Kate Middleton — who spells her name Catherine — change her name ahead of her wedding to Prince William, according to a new biography.
“Charles and Camilla each had a royal monogram that consisted of interlocking C’s beneath a crown,” Christopher Andersen explained in “Kate! The Courage, Grace and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen.”
The author alleged Charles, 77, and Camilla, 78, were concerned a third royal cypher — a personalized monogram or emblem representing a royal family member — with a C “was overkill.”
The duo reportedly asked Middleton, 44, whether she minded changing the spelling of her first name from “Catherine” to “Katherine.”
Andersen wrote in his book, out Tuesday, that Camilla pointed out Middleton was already known to most of the world as “Kate.” Middleton was reportedly “offended” by the inquiry.
A “fuming” William allegedly replied on his then-fiancée’s behalf, calling the request “insulting … not only to Kate but to her entire family.”
The matter was subsequently dropped, according to Andersen.
I still don’t know why the British tabloids ever started writing her name as “Kate” when it always should have been “Cate.” It’s possible that the British media just assumed she was Kate-with-a-K (the far more popular spelling) and by the time anyone realized how her name was actually spelled, the papers were simply too invested in spelling her name with a K. As for Camilla and Charles bringing up a possible spelling change… since Harry said it in Spare, I believe it. What I don’t believe is that Kate was “offended.” Please. She waited a whole decade to get to that point. If Charles and Camilla ordered her to change her name to Waity Wigs-a-lot, she would have done it. I do believe that William was probably the one who shut down all of that talk though.
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