Kate Middleton’s Secret Privilege Revealed: The Surprising Item She Brings to Balmoral!
The Princess of Wales has been a regular visitor to the royals Balmoral retreat many years now - and a book claims that on one of her first trips there, she was given permission to bring a treasured item with her
As part of a Royal Family tradition, the Prince and Princess of Wales make the trek to Scotland each year to spend time at Balmoral.
Prince William has been visiting the Scottish Highlands retreat ever since he was a small boy with the rest of his royal relatives. And in recent years Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis got to spend precious time with their late great-grandmother the Queen at her favourite home, where she died in September 2022.
King Charles has carried on the tradition of hosting the Firm at Balmoral, and it’s believed William, Kate and the kids are heading there this year in what will be her longest trip away from her Windsor home since her cancer diagnosis earlier this year.But unlike her husband and children, Kate was a lot older before she first visited the estate.
Her first invitation to spend time there came in the days when she started dating her future husband. There’s no doubt Kate would have felt nervous ahead of her first few trips to the estate – but it appears the late Queen was keen to make her feel welcome – and she reportedly did this by giving her a rare privilege.
According to royal author Katie Nicholl, Her Majesty gave Kate permission to bring her camera and take pictures at Balmoral and of the surrounding dramatic landscape, knowing how much she loved photography. And while this may not sound like a big deal to the average person, Katie explains this simply wasn’t the done thing usually.
In her book, Kate: The Future Queen, she writes: “Until now the Queen had met Kate only fleetingly at the wedding of Peter and Autumn Phillips, but she went out of her way to make her feel welcome, giving her permission to take pictures at Balmoral.”
And according to Katie, this and being invited to Balmoral showed how the Queen was ready to let Kate into the inner royal circle. She added: “As a woman who has lived her entire life in the public eye, the Queen rarely lets her guard down, and very few apart from her family and closest friends get to see the real Elizabeth.”
Last year, Kate gave a glimpse of the type of photos she’s snapped at Balmoral when she shared a heartwarming previously unseen snap of the late Queen surrounded by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren during her final weeks.
The snap, taken by Kate in the summer of 2022 at Balmoral, shows the former monarch on a sofa with the young royals all smiles next to their beloved ‘Gan Gan’. On the sofa next to her is her oldest great-grandchild Savannah Phillips, the eldest daughter of Peter Phillips, as well as Mia Tindall, who cradles her brother Lucas.
