Queen Camilla is said to have been one of Princess Catherine’s “fiercest critics” before her marriage to Prince William, allegedly deeming her “too common” to be the wife of the future King.
The Prince and Princess of Wales married in 2011 after meeting at St Andrews University 10 years earlier.
According to royal author Christopher Andersen, Camilla, 78, felt Kate, 44, was unfit to join the Royal Family because she “had no aristocratic blood”.
While the Princess of Wales did not hold any noble titles before her marriage to William, she did have a wealthy upbringing and attended prestigious private schools, including Malborough College and Downe House.
Her parents, Michael and Carole Middleton, are estimated to have a net worth of more than £54 million (around A$101 million) after building their fortune through their party supply business.
“In the beginning, Camilla was one of Kate’s fiercest critics,” Andersen told Fox News Digital.
“She did not think she was up to snuff, as it were. She was below the salt. She had no aristocratic blood.”
The author claimed Camilla was “very cognisant of the fact a future king of England should have a marriage to a royal personage, or at least a British aristocrat,” and this is why she always saw herself as a “mistress rather than a Queen” to King Charles.
In his new book, Kate! The Courage, Grace, and Power of the Woman Who Will Be Queen, Andersen claims Camilla even requested that Kate change her name.
“Charles and Camilla each had a royal monogram that consisted of interlocking Cs beneath a crown, and they expressed concern that a third royal cypher with a C was overkill,” the royal expert wrote.
“Would Kate mind if she changed the spelling of her full name from ‘Catherine’ to ‘Katherine?’
“Camilla pointed out that such a change also made sense on the grounds that, to most of the world, she was known simply as ‘Kate.'”
The request is said to have left Prince William, 43, “fuming”. He allegedly told King Charles that the suggestion was “insulting to Kate and her entire family”, and the matter was dropped.
William and Kate celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary last month and marked it with a sweet Instagram post featuring their three children: Prince George, 13, Princess Charlotte, 11, and Prince Louis, eight.
On Wednesday, the Princess will kick off her first overseas royal engagement since completing her cancer treatment in 2024.
Kate will travel to Reggio Emilia, Italy, for a two-day working visit on behalf of her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, which she launched in 2021.