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?!

yes, she is now applying her considerable determination to making a success of it. Good on her I say.

A lot of us pointing out the UCAS flaw was in response to making out it's easy to just get on the same course - as if grades and applications don't matter - there an entire process to go through as we were pointing out.

Saying we'd all missed the point and then claiming to be making the same point is very MN though I'll grant you that.

No I think they liked each other . And who would do that to their daughter ?He isn't a catch! He might be a Heir to the throne but God who would be happy doing that ffs ??

I've always thought it was engineered and nothing will change my mind.

Remembering that W comes from a class that is happy to marry to get an heir and then have serial affairs

I find it a sexist view that Carole Middleton is the one always being accused of this. A scheming social climbing woman? Michael Middleton isn't referred to in the same way.

Whether she did or didn't try doesn't really matter.

It's not as if William married the first woman to show an interest in him - he dated plenty of women. You can put two people in the same place at the same time, but you cannot control if both of them actually want to enter into a relationship and whether they'll get married.

He had choices. He made one.

William got A-B-C... one of which was Art...

But why do you think your opinion is the truth? You don't know them. You don't know anything about St Andrews. You don't know how many other eligible girls there were there or why he went for her. Do you really think her parents could engineer their reasonably attractive and reasonably educated daughter into marrying the future king?

YANBU. I have never understood this ridiculous view point. You cant force anyone to date anyone, let alone a Prince. Sure, maybe she liked the thought of it but noone can control something like that and the idea that she's this scheming machiavellian who planned it all along is crediting her with way more cunning than is remotely realistic - its laughable really.

I think that Carole Middleton certainly did things to increase the chances of Kate marrying well - encouraging her to go to St Andrews was one of them. However, there would have been many, many young men there who would have come from family wealth, been well-educated and had a good chance of doing well in any career that they chose. Kate was a beautiful young woman (still is now!) and it wasn't a Prince William-or-no-one game.

Some women are very strategic about the who-you-marry question so I suspect that Carole probably did have a few conversations with her daughters about the importance of their choices in this area. But do I believe that she engineered the whole thing? No.

Only about 100 people in their hall of residence........

Katie also went to the same school as Eugenie.
AND her father is (albeit distantly) descended from the royal family anyway!

I haven't read the whole thread but I remember reading some time ago that they both coincidentally did the same expedition with Raleigh International Chile weeks apart, just before their course began. That's quite a coincidence, and would have given them alot in common.

But you can't force these things, I agree it's very unfair and spiteful to say about her mother. Maybe being similar ages PW set the trends for that set of people where to do and what to do, maybe lots of her friends were going there too, who knows or cares.

My son is in his fifth year of studying at St Andrews and so far has completely failed to find a nice girlfriend, despite living in St Salvatore's for two years and even doing an Art History module in first year. I've failed as a mother 😭

Why does it matter now lol
i think she always looks unhappy tbf

I think you've been very successful - taught him to use his discretion!

Of course they engineered it, and it took a hell of a lot of work. That said, I think it would have been basically impossible for William to have met a “normal” girl with an organically developing relationship. For starters, the majority of young women would have had no interest in marrying into such a hugely public and rigidly defined “role for life”. So only a very specific sort of personality would have shown interest in the future king in the first place.

Do you have any idea how many eligible girls applied to St Andrews that year because William was studying there?

But Kate is 7 years older.

It helps when you look as good as Kate does. Then you arrange to take the same classes as them so they see lots of you, pretend to be interested in their hobbies and interests, laugh at their jokes, flirt, etc. It's not difficult and it's not news either. Kate Middleton has always been the world's most successful stalker.

@KrisAkabusi , that's a vile thing to say. and how the hell do you know? Are you Kate's best friend?

What a lot of bitching and jealousy on this thread. Horrible.

It was hardly likely to be a hard hitting career field sort of degree so probably not hard to guess history/art/social - they did history or art or something I think

It was literally on the BBC news that William was taking a gap year and then heading to St Andrews to study History of Art.

Me too!

Of course Carole Middleton did not engineer her eldest daughter's marriage, neither did she do so for the other two. What the Middletons wanted was for their children to be happy and marry people of their choice.

Btw, I do not think the royals are snobbish. Middle and working classes are, not always but often, far more snobbish (my mother could have outdone Hyacinth Bouquet any day), and I have come across people who think anyone who speaks well is automatically a snob, which is quite defensive.

what that article means is Carole (the commoner had ideas above her station and manipulated the whole thing therefore "trapping" a Royal how dare she the conniving So&So

its been many years and 3 children the media really need to let it go.

Of those of us who are graduates, how many would say that our parents “sent” them to our Alma Mater?? In fact how many of us would say they “encouraged” us to go to wherever. Wouldn’t we be more likely to say we applied to a variety of unis within our academic reach pretty much independent of parental involvement other than general support and enthusiasm?

This age old story of a scheming mother is as ridiculous as it is misogynistic. So very many moving parts for it to be remotely plausible