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?!

@TheClogLady I think he was on an Art History course initially and then transferred to Geography

Who cares - K&W seem very solid and in love, he’s learnt from his parent’s shitshow of a Jeremy Kyle marriage and Kate learnt what a good, close family home looks like. I imagine if William was so very susceptible to the influences of some random woman he’d have gone for a member of the aristocracy or a Sloane Ranger, many of whom no doubt had mothers trying to nab him for their DDs

At least if there's any grain of truth Kate will be able to sniff out any social climbing parents in the kids school Lambrook & give them a wide berth!

I think he was lucky anyone would marry him. It looks like a financially privileged but day-to-day fairly boring life with a lot of scrutiny. It’s not like you could do a runner with the cash.

Of course the whole thing couldn't be engineered and there's no reason to think it was Carole specifically who was trying to achieve this but:

Kate switched university (was originally going to Edinburgh) and deferred in order to be in William's year at university studying the same course (William later switched course). I think it's reasonably clear she was putting herself his way. Of course it might not have worked out, he might not have found her attractive etc but I think it's fairly clear she was keen.

As an upper middle class woman with aristocratic links, Kate was always going to marry a rich, well-connected man, have kids and then do community work and enhance her husband's career. Like her sister.

I doubt they expected or intended for that man to be Prince William, but it's on the same life trajectory she was always headed for.

@NonPlayerCharacter to be fair I thought the Middletons were quite solidly middle class?

Misogynistic bullshit. The scheming, plotting mother.

I think the Middletons have always carried themselves with dignity.

I applied to St Andrews a few years earlier than W&K and the way it worked then was that the first year was more like doing Alevels and you had a choice of a really wide range of modules from across the faculty and studied several subjects, and then I think in 2nd year you picked less of a range but it was only 3rd & 4th year when you narrowed it down to a specific subject, and as a result apparently a lot of people didn't end up with the degree subject they'd originally applied for! It was a very different set up to the English unis I applied to (and mainly why I didn't go to St Andrews!)

I mean, I'm sure she may well have had ambitions for her daughter to marry Prince William, but she certainly wasn't/isn't capable of engineering it. There is no way on earth that the Middletons are in any way able to manipulate an institution as huge, powerful (and, frankly, fucking weird) as the Royal Family. The monarchy isn't exactly known for being relaxed about the future of the heir to the throne.

They didn't do the same subject. He did Geography. She did History of Art

She couldn't have known they were going to be at the same university. The royals didn't announce it until the August before he started (and when everyone else in the country would have already got their places too). Before it was announced there was a lot of talk of him going to Edinburgh or to the University of East Anglia, so if she was trying to orchestrate it, she only had a 1 in 3 chance of getting the right one.

Upper middle. Her mother has more modest roots but her father has links to the aristocracy and she went to boarding school.

“She's pretty, but shes not a stunner.”

I beg to differ.

At most, I think you could say that she probably encouraged her daughter to weather it out in the long "waity Katie" years. That must have been a pretty humiliating time for Kate, and her Mum might have pushed her to hang on in there (was that good advice or not? is Kate happier now than she might have been married to just a guy?).

Always a woman portrayed as scheming.

He started History of Art and then changed to Geography. I wonder if that was a deliberate ploy on his part. I have a friend who was a lecturer in St. Andrews at the time and he told me quite a bit about it. It was widely known which subject he had applied for. There was an increase in applications to History of Art and to St. Andrews as a whole.
I think IIRC, you apply to a subject at St. Andrews and that will be one of the first year choices but you do other subjects too - a broader curriculum - and that's why quite a lot of people end up graduating in a different subject to the one they originally applied for.

I don't think Carole Middleton deliberately engineered this. You can't. William might not have liked Kate. Kate might have found him to be an insufferable bore etc. William might have given in to any palace attempts to force a marriage with a more suitable woman from nobility. Anything could have happened.
However, Kate going to the same university at the same time and applying for the subject William was initially going to study gave her a chance at meeting him.
There are plenty of other people from upper class families at St. Andrews so Kate would have had a good chance of "marrying well" even if it hadn't worked out with William.
When I was there, even I managed to date a European count for a while and I'm working class. He was very keen on me for some reason but it didn't work out because I found him boring - the way he talked about a particular subject non-stop in which I had no interest.

He started History of Art and then he changed to Geography.

Surely the influence parents have over the love lives of their teens and young people in western culture is pretty much zero?! Respect if anyone manages otherwise!

Kate's ex at St Andrews Rupert Finch is a very handsome, successful lawyer now who married the aristocrat Natasha Rufus Iassacs (a close friend of wills) so she would have married very well regardless.

https://www.tatler.com/gallery/kate-and-william-duke-and-duchess-cambridge-ex-boyfriends-ex-girlfriends-st-andrews

Find out what Uni they're going to and get your kid in there. Get her to join the shooting club. Make friends with their friends' girlfriends. Etc.
I don't know how Kate managed to get a room in the house share with PW but being around him all the time is the first step. And he made a wise choice eventually, after she hung in there - she is fantastic at her role.

There may be dozens of other upper middle class parents who attempted the engineering of getting their daughter to capture the prince - but were unsuccessful. It is the sort of thing that the "prize" winner may say.
Kate may have a lovely husband, family and home but it certainly wouldn't be my career choice.

That's fine, it was hers.

The Middletons are very much middle class (someone upthread mentioned "aristocratic" - but that's nonsense).

I think most middle class parents with sharp elbows do their utmost to make sure that their children will move even further upwards.

I think any plan would have failed if Catherine had been short and dumpy, though. That was pure luck.