This coming week is going to be full of anniversary keenness for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. April 29th will mark their 10-year wedding anniversary and we’re not supposed to talk about the decade before that wedding, a decade where Kate stalked William and simply waited him out as he cheated on her constantly. But the Keen Narrative! Never put a foot wrong! Lynchpin! Keen Guevara! Peacemaker! That’s what we’re supposed to talk about, I guess. Richard Kay and Geoffrey Levy have done a lengthy piece about the Keen Decade and mostly it’s just an excuse to rehash the old stories with a positive spin to make both William and Kate sound less lazy. I guess there are a few interesting parts though, which I’ll highlight. You can read the full piece here.

W&K are not glamorous, social & interesting: When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge moved into Kensington Palace during the third year of their marriage, the capital was agog with excited chatter. The handsome young couple were bound to be setting up the most fashionable social salon in London. Well, it hasn’t worked out quite like that. Indeed, their ‘house manager’, who’d previously worked for busy socialites and hoped to oversee some amazing entertaining, decided to quit because it was ‘all too quiet’. As he told friends, ‘It was a shame because they are such nice people and I was really fond of them.’

Kate is not… competitive: ‘Catherine is so marvellously uncompetitive considering the amount of attention she gets from everyone,’ says one senior Palace figure. ‘She manages to raise the Queen’s spirits. The Queen sees it as quite wonderful that William married such a sensible girl whom the public seem to love for her own sake.’ And how typical of that girl whom William first fell for when he was 20 to arrive unannounced, and with a bunch of daffodils from the royal garden in her hand, to join the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old murdered marketing executive. Kate’s simple, private gesture was widely appreciated by women and thoroughly approved of by William.

Why is Meghan even being mentioned? No one in those early, happy days could possibly have anticipated Meghan’s sullen disappointment at her new life, and the flight from royal duties by a petulant Prince Harry with the wife who had failed to adjust to life at court. ‘It’s been devastating for William and Catherine having to go it alone,’ says a senior Palace figure. ‘Thank goodness Catherine at least was able to adapt to her new life without any fuss. I can’t recall her complaining about anything. No one at the Palace did any more for her than for Meghan. It’s always been the same when someone new arrives in the family – you’re here, you’ll learn, now get on with it. She did. She gives William so much confidence.’

Remember how Kate flashed everyone constantly for years: A sobering lesson was about to be learned, however, that even on the most carefully choreographed royal tour the unexpected can always happen. And there was Kate on the tarmac at Calgary international airport, when a sharp gust of wind lifted the hem of her yellow Jenny Packham dress. In a Marilyn Monroe moment, there was a flash of thigh, exposing those long and shapely legs that had brought William’s eyes out on stalks a decade earlier at the St Andrews fashion show. Canada liked William, but they fell for Kate’s charms.

Profound sadness: All the same Meghan Markle’s arrival was a glittering addition to the royal story with all eyes on this glamorous ‘Fab Four’ of William, Kate, Harry and Meghan. That it all fell apart so swiftly remains a matter of profound sadness. For as long as the Sussexes remain in exile in the US, their son Archie and his yet-to-be-born sister will know next to nothing of their cousins George, Charlotte and Louis…Whether this royal rift can ever properly be healed remains a matter of considerable conjecture. Amid such heartfelt dismay, Anmer, with its swimming pool and tennis court and open acres, has been a refuge for William and Kate. It was where they chose to be in the week after the death of Prince Philip. William would happily live there full-time, but then he always knew things would have to change when George started school at fee-paying Thomas’s in Battersea.

William is still enraged: ‘With everything that William has on his plate, that interview was the last thing he needed,’ says one of William’s friends. ‘William was incredibly upset over what was said about the Royal Family and racism. And he was enraged that Meghan should drag up that cruel old chestnut ‘Waity Katie’.’

[From The Daily Mail]

“Thank goodness Catherine at least was able to adapt to her new life without any fuss…No one at the Palace did any more for her than for Meghan.” Lolz. Kate is still infantilized and praised for doing the bare minimum while Meghan was expected to work constantly from Day 1 of her engagement, all while being abused by press and palaces. And did Kay and Levy really say that Canadians liked Kate *because* she flashed her ass at them? I think so. As for Kate somehow, magically, not being competitive… yes, that’s why she’s still copying Meghan. That’s why Kate and William’s a–holes puckered when Meghan came around and they tried to bully her out of the country. Because Kate is not competitive.

Photos courtesy of WENN.