Last May, Carole and Michael Middleton turned up at King Charles’s coronation. Pippa and James Middleton were also there, but Pippa and James didn’t get to invite their spouses. I have no idea where they were seated, but it wasn’t close to the front of the church. Still, they posed for photos and Carole showed off her latest cosmetic work. We knew at the time that the Middletons’ business, Party Pieces, was having major financial issues, but everything fell apart just weeks after the coronation. Suddenly, Carole went to bankruptcy court, sold PP for low six figures and the buyer didn’t have to assume any of the Middletons’ debt. As it turned out, Carole had accumulated over £2.6 million in debt and a chunk of it was Carole screwing over small businesses, businesses from which she had personally requested credit. Anyway, we don’t need to relitigate all of that now, especially since the coronation was probably the last time we will see the Middletons at an official royal event (Kate’s Christmas carol thing doesn’t count). So how did the Middletons get coronation invites anyway? William personally requested them.

There was one thing that Prince William was totally “insistent” on when it came to King Charles’ Coronation, and it involved his mother-in-law Carole Middleton, a new royal book has claimed. The book, Charles III: The Inside Story by Robert Hardman, states that William wouldn’t budge on his demand over the attendance of Kate’s family and how they would be included on the big day. The Prince of Wales was reportedly so adamant that there was no choice but to grant his request And in Hardman’s view, this decision shows just how much things have really changed within the Royal Family since the start of the late Queen Elizabeth’s reign, which lasted 70 years.

The author wrote that Prince William made a “direct request” that the Middleton family be in attendance and seated in a pretty high-profile position. Hardman noted that this was in direct contrast to some of the old guard of the extended Royal Family, with the Queen Mother’s family – the Bowes Lyons – having only two members there to represent them.

The journalist also pointed out in the book that the Mountbattens – Prince Philip’s family – were only represented by Countess Mountbatten, with other relatives left off the guest list entirely. Even Lady Pamela Hicks, one of the former members of the Royal Household under the late Queen, got snubbed.

However, Michael and Carole Middleton, as well as Kate’s two siblings – James and Pippa – were invited to the big day that officially marked the start of the new reign.

This was a “direct request from the Prince of Wales himself,” Hardman wrote, quoting an anonymous source saying: “‘Having all of them there was very important to him… he was absolutely insistent that his wife’s family be properly included.'”

Hardman says that this encapsulated just how much the Royal Family had changed since Queen Elizabeth’s own Coronation in 1953 when it had been controversial that the Mountbattens played an influential role in the monarchy. “Such are the shifting sands,” the book reads, “that, seventy years on, the Middletons outnumber the Mountbattens four to one.”

[From The Daily Mirror]

Yeah, I wonder? I sort of believe that William personally requested the Middletons receive invitations – because Kate doesn’t have the power to request sh-t – but why did he do it? Probably to get under Charles’s skin. Charles loathes the Middletons, and I doubt Charles would have invited them if left to his own devices. That being said, it’s weird to blame the Middletons on the lack of invitations to the wider family – India Hicks was actually quite upset that she and her mother Pamela Hicks were not invited, and there were SO many aristocrats screaming and crying about how they belonged at the Chubbly too, to no avail. At the end of the day, including the grifter Middletons set a particular kind of tacky tone. Of course, seeing Camilla smirk in her consort crown also set a tacky tone. (Don’t forget, the Cholmondeleys were also invited.)

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.