The art of being a royal is making things look easy.
Right now, as the Princess of Wales begins a long recovery from abdominal surgery at home, we can see that this is not the case.
Overcoming major surgery is hard enough for anyone. For a mother of three children who is so scrutinized, it must be many times more difficult.
Catherine, Princess of Wales, pictured with her family on their way to church at Sandringham on Christmas Day
Adelaide Cottage on the Windsor estate, home of the Wales family, where Catherine is now recovering
Catherine cuts a glamorous figure as she attends the Royal Variety Performance at the Royal Albert Hall in November 2021
Catherine doesn’t want to see anyone except those closest to her. Fortunately, she is well supported by her mother Carole, father Mike, sister Pippa and brother James.
She will be happy to be away from her children after a fortnight, although the fact that mum is back home means they will need her attention.
So far so normal. But it is also true that we are putting extraordinary pressure on our frontline royals.
We want them to behave with the majesty and splendor of Britain’s first family, while we reserve the right to treat them as the people next door.
We’re told the princess plans to ‘work from bed’ at Adelaide Cottage, the family home in Windsor. Wise or not, we know that a modern Windsor cannot afford to appear useless.
No matter how tired Kate feels, how vulnerable she is, she’s undoubtedly trying to maintain the impossible glamor we’ve come to expect.
Times like these show the fine line we ask her and other royal women to tread.
Princess Diana once told me that no matter how much she was revered – adored, even – she remained nervous and insecure.
Her fans had clear ideas about who she was. She knew nothing about them.
Diana said she felt the presence of press photographers was like rape on camera. No matter what she did or said, she felt like they were there to get her. She felt powerless.
Luckily, she didn’t live in the age of social media, which her daughter-in-law now has to deal with.
William and Catherine have done well to protect their children and keep them as private as possible.
It’s easy to scoff at a world of privilege – of servants and nannies and endless chic fashion. And plenty do.
Just look at the fuss when it was speculated that Kate and William’s nanny, Maria Teresa Turrion Borrallo, could earn more than £100,000.
(If so, her salary is in line with other Norland nannies with her experience. Teresa has now worked for the family since 2014, when Prince George was just eight months old.)
But while it suits us to pretend that the royals are ‘basically just like us’, the truth is that they are not.
They need paid help, a lot of it, just to keep the show going – and keep up the appearances we demand.
Princess Diana pictured with Prince William in a matching coat and older cousin Peter Phillips
Diana, glamorous in green for an evening at the theatre, told Ingrid Seward she could never have dealt with the attention that followed her
The Prince and Princess of Wales have done well to protect their children George, Louis and Charlotte in a media age, writes Seward
Maria Teresa Borrallo, Welsh children’s nanny, is pictured at Pippa Middleton and James Matthews’ wedding in 2017
Not everyone will sympathize with the Welsh, who are in Windsor and protected 24 hours a day.
But a life of meticulous research, endless responsibility and non-stop trolling is a great price to pay for a little evening glam and a wardrobe full of designer dresses.
Diana discovered this. And who can blame Kate, sore and exhausted, if she felt something similar.
- Ingrid Seward is editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and her new book My Mother & I will be published by Simon & Schuster later this month