Aibu to think it was not possible for Carole Middleton to engineer her daughters marriage?

[Bahhumbug23]

https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/royals/carole-middleton-master-plan/

Kate was staunchly middle class. The royals are notoriously snobby. Aibu to think that Carole did not & wouldn't be capable of engineering this? How the hell would she be able to do this?!

Who cares. Boring people, boring lives.

This claim by Scobie is total fiction, designed to amplify H&M’s ‘great love’ compared to an allegedly semi-arranged marriage for W&K. It’s very sad and pathetic and deserves no attention.

@Wbeezer "I feel people are exaggerating how exclusive St Andrews is, it's not exactly a gated community"

I agree it's not. But it is very small. It does attract a particular class of English students (less so Scottish) and there certainly were particular subjects that the posh English went for. And you certainly could choose Halls- Sallies for the posh English! So if you were going to make a play for a Prince, St Andrews was the place to do it!

You can't choose Halls directly though, you can just choose catered, shared room and then your more likely to get into one of the old central halls but not for definite and then you get put where they choose, you can't ask for Sallies, there's no mechanism for doing that in first year. I looked into it thoroughly because I didn't want DS2 to end up in one of the expensive en- suite rooms in the newer halls for budgetary reasons. He actually ended up in Sallies which has a nice dining room but very tired rooms and v basic bathrooms etc. he had a view of the bins!

Well, to be fair, it’s a shame but this is properly as much about other students potentially selling photos to the tabloids, as it is about snobbery.

Probably not properly

But were the Middleton's part of an elite upper class circle before having their children? I have a small insight into this world as ex boyf was a landed gentry toff. It was clear from the off I was never ever going to be accepted into this world. I was made feel like "his bit of rough".. It is impossible to break into those circles even if one marries in they will always be made feel like a blow in.

I read something the other day that said Kate M was a direct descendant of Anne Boleyn. Obviously, she's not. I think it further said she was descended from one of the children of Mary Boleyn. If there's a relationship presumably it would be through her father, and maybe close acquaintance is not so baffling as it first appears.

They're getting confused with Diana, who was descended from Mary Boleyn and therefore possibly Henry VIII, as he may have fathered one or both of her children. Would explain the Spencer red hair.

Kate's father, with links to the aristocracy, might well be descended from an earlier royal. Henry VIII and all six of his wives were descended from Edward I.

@Bahhumbug23 you’re right.

E.g. Geri H can hold her own but dated a couple of aristos, Henry Beckwith etc & it didn’t last.

I imagine KM struggles with the snobbery of some even now, they will exclude those that don’t belong.

Social mobility is transgenerational.Yes you ( and to some extent the Princess of Wales, certainly her mother) will always be blow-ins. Their children however will be accepted...

She gets enough of it from us peasants!

Thanks I do find it fascinating even going back to the very early years of W&K, the press used to refer to them as the "middle class Middleton's". Surely being millionaires isn't enough to break into the upper echleons eg Wayne & Colleen & the Beckhams will never be accepted by the upper upper classes as "one of us".
Despite the Beckhams multi millions, shooting weekends, beautiful Codswolds home, springer spaniels, ski holidays (all umc markers) they still won't make the umc cut.
@user14March Geri Horner is an excellent example also. With her F1 hubby they have all the umc markers (Inc a child called Monty!) but will never be part of the landed gentry toff set.
How did the Middleton's do it?!

@Bahhumbug23 Michael M had UMC cred/was UMC to start with. That’s how. The others you list didn’t have that card in their hand.

It seems to take a gen or two to go ‘up, a class, but you can’t ever become UC or an aristo it seems.

It can work in other direction too.

@User14March it's interesting as Michael Middleton's background is always played down to imply Carol instrumented W&K's marriage. When in fact the family was already umc. The press give the impression of a very normal family who made their fortune from party pieces.

@User14March

https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a3476/how-kate-middleton-imploded-the-british-class-system-and-heralded-the-rise-of-a-brand-new-social-stratum/

Carole is also being blamed in this article from 2015. It's ridiculous.

She would have had to have inside information that she simply wouldn’t have had, she would have needed to be able to decide her daughters university accommodation allocation, Williams choice in friendship groups etc.

You can do things that would make it more likely (paying to attend a schools where she will be in those circles, encouraging a particular uni if you though the was going there) but that is the same as trying to give your kid the best start.

It is a ridiculous claim.

It is a crazy claim especially as the Internet wasn't nearly as informative as it is now.

Him going to St Andrews wasn't made public until after applications closed. Whilst there were rumours beforehand, various Cambridge colleges were also cited plus Durham and various Welsh universities ... St Andrews always is popular with a certain posh set! Right place right time not engineered.

Ridiculous. Talking of Henry VIII, the Boleyns weren't considered posh enough at the time for the throne, certainly no match for a born princess of Spain, which was just another weapon used against them. People with minor aristocratic links and merchant stock getting in with a king aren't new...

From what I have heard if CM was engineering or hoping for anything it was eligible partners for her children.

She wanted monied, UMC, intelligent, patrician types. Not royalty etc. If so then she's only guilty of wanting her children to marry 'well' , which is a universal desire, pretty much. It's just 'well' means different things to different people.

@User14March absolutely nowt wrong with that & her own children were well mannered & brought up, good looking & well educated. Doesn't sound like any engineering was needed for any of the three of them to marry well the same as any other person from a similar background.

And where's the father in all this discussion, anyway? Did he not also want his kids to do well?

@NonPlayerCharacter it's ridiculous isn't it. That article in town & country mag I linked above gives a thinly veiled description of the dad's role as chauffeur & dogwalker🙄

I said that up thread!
Indeed where is he ?. In the old days when gals like these entered the debutent circuit the fathers were out there pushing it. As was Johnnie Spencer with his daughters!
But mum Middleton is demonised for something which holds no substance. She is treated similarly to the great mum tennis coach Judy Murray - the lady who did the hard graft early mornings long drives in a mini bus and then with success of her amazing boys she was labelled pushy.
Ridiculous.