Kate Middleton didn’t ‘resist’ her mom Carole’s plans to get her close to Prince William like ‘The Crown’ depicts, a royal historian says
Kate Middleton and Prince William’s romance is brought to the forefront in the final installment of Netflix’s “The Crown.”

Released on December 14, the episodes take viewers back to Kate and William’s early courtship during their time at St Andrews University in Scotland.

At times, the show takes a hard detour from reality for entertainment purposes — like the scene where a 15-year-old Kate and her mother Carole Middleton are shown having a chance encounter with Prince William and Princess Diana on the streets of London.

As Business Insider’s Eve Crosbie reported, that never happened.

But a royal historian also says that’s far from the only aspect of Kate and William’s relationship that was invented for “The Crown.”

Clare McHugh, a royal historian and author of the upcoming novel “The Romanov Brides,” tells BI that a scene in episode seven where Kate (Meg Bellamy) confronts Carole (Eve Best) about her plan to get her daughter close to William (Ed McVey) is pure fiction.

Not only that, McHugh said that Kate and Carole worked together to capture William’s attention at university.

“What is interesting to me is that ‘The Crown’ did not shy away from showing Carole as insistent that Kate kept going,” McHugh said. “I think the only part where they faltered was when they had Kate resisting a bit.”

“The two of them were as one all along,” she added.

Carole Middleton and Kate Middleton photographed on June 20, 2017 in Ascot, England.

Carole’s plan is laid bare in the scene where Kate tells her mother that her relationship with another student Rupert Finch (Oli Green) is “serious.”

“If that’s okay with you,” Kate says, with a tone of irony. Carole responds by asking why it wouldn’t be, to which Kate tells her: “Because you’ve always had your sights on someone else for me.”

She goes on to paint Carole as the instigator behind her ditching her original plans to study at Edinburgh University to attend St Andrews after a gap year — exactly like William.

But McHugh said she is “quite sure” that “psychologically Kate did not resist.”

“They decided this together,” McHugh, a former newspaper reporter and magazine editor, said.

She also pointed to author and Vanity Fair royal correspondent Katie Nicholl’s reporting on the topic as further evidence.

According to Hello! Magazine, Nicholl wrote in her 2013 book, “Kate: The Future Queen” that: “It seemed every girl in America wanted to come to St. Andrews to search out the prince. Kate would have read the papers.”

“She would have known that William was going and that there was every chance they could be in the same program at the same time if she got a place to study there,” Nicholl added.

The beginnings of Kate Middleton and Prince William’s romance is depicted in season six of “The Crown” — including their relationships with other people.

The theory has been bolstered in the years since by other royal authors, including Omid Scobie. According to Marie Claire, Scobie claimed in his new book “Endgame” that Carole encouraged Kate to “turn down a spot at her dream school” after learning William was “slated” to attend St Andrews.

“Carole set things up, and Kate took it the rest of the way,” Scobie added, painting a picture that the two were on the same page.

“When you read the accounts, the very good accounts by Katie Nicholl and other people, you see that Carole Middleton really urged her daughter to play the long game,” McHugh said.

However the relationship started, McHugh said that it doesn’t detract from Kate and William’s marriage nor Carole’s love for her daughter.

Speaking to BI, McHugh described Carole as “ambitious,” and “a really devoted mother” with “a pretty keen sense of how human beings operate, especially young people.”

Kensington Palace did not respond to BI’s request for comment. BI was unable to contact Carole Middleton for comment.