Eldritch, I'm glad you posted Mantel's final paragraph as I've just abandoned her essay about halfway through. She's got a point or two but I read with mounting irritation at what felt to me like a shallow, mean-minded caricature of royalty and what it symbolises. The voice in my head sounded unctuous, empty of meaning and spoken through sneering lips.
I've got no gripe with Kate. I'm not that interested in her, tbh, but she gives the impression of significantly more intelligence than the hallowed Diana and a more pragmatic grasp of her position. I like her humour, such as she's shown, and her little humanities like taking her shoes off to walk on the sand and exposing a pair of utterly normal tits. To me, her eyes are not "dead" but careful - as they should be! Only an emotionally vulnerable girl with terrible boundaries would spew her feelings all over such a very public role, as Diana did. Kate should have learned from her MIL and, it seems, has done so.
I met Diana. She was, in truth, extraordinarily beautiful, unpretentious and very sweet. She was in entirely the wrong job. To me, she looked like a sacrifice on the day she got engaged. Throughout her career, I kept urging her image on the telly to take control, get a therapist, get some distance. She wasn't a saint. She was a young woman out of her depth. That she did her best, and did a lot of good, wasn't enough to save her. If I were marrying her son, I am quite sure both he and I would be anxious I should learn from her mistakes - and be up to the demands of the job.
I think Mantel's been most unkind to Kate, in the peculiar way that the envious or awestruck frequently are to those they examine. I really enjoyed her depiction of Charles as his suit, but how pathetic to be shocked that there were stacks of chairs in an empty, adjacent room! That told me Mantel herself is overwhelmed by the pomp; the glamour: the Prince is in an Ordinary Building! Gosh! She assumes such things must lead Charles to view his life as an expensive overlay of gloss upon mundanity. I think the author doth project too much.
She's wrong about Marie Antionette, too, except that she had a certain amount in common with Diana. The girl was impossibly young, sheltered and simply wanted things to go well. They didn't, obviously. I want a better experience and a better outcome for Kate; forcing her into a frilly, pretty, saintly "Princess" role would be nothing less than a hideous reprise of earlier mistakes. Luckily for her, I think she's got the brains and strength of character to resist the pink frilly frocks and platinum locks of fairy tales.
Look, I wrote my own essay 