Kate Middleton is ‘what the Royal Family needs’ says former staffer as the Firm faces tough times

The Royal Family is desperate for ‘conventional performers’ as it faces a difficult year, according to a former staffer, who says Kate Middleton is ‘what these troubled times need’.

With Prince Andrew’s legal battles, as well as the Firm’s concerns over the imminent publication of Prince Harry’s upcoming memoir, the Duchess of Cambridge, 40, has been touted as playing a key role in shaping the future of the Monarchy.

‘As the Prince Andrew scandal shows, the monarchy is in desperate need of reassuringly conventional royal performers,’ Patrick Jephson, former chief of staff for Diana, Princess of Wales, told the New York Post.

‘Catherine is just what these troubled royal times need – it’s no exaggeration that the Windsors’ future lies in her hands.’ 

Bethan Holt, author of The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style, told the publication that there ‘seems to be a campagin to make the Cambridges the family’s ‘global stars’ – adding that Kate is ‘clever’ in her ‘calculated move to include Diana’s memory alive’.

In a recent interview, royal expert and biographer Katie Nicholls said that the Queen, 95, already ‘hugely values’ Kate’s work, and will rely on her ‘more than ever’ amid the royal scandals. 

The biggest scandal facing the Firm at the moment is Prince Andrew’s upcoming civil case, after being accused of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress by Virginia Giuffre.

She claims that she was forced to sleep with the Prince on three occasions by US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell – the first time when she was 17 and under the legal age of consent under New York law.

The former Queen Consort has been described as a ‘conventional royal performer’ by Patrick Jephson, former chief of staff for Diana, Princess of Wales

A US judge rejected the prince’s bid to have his sex abuse case thrown out, leaving him facing the prospect of being cross-examined for seven hours on camera with embarrassing questions on everything from his sex life and ‘private parts’.   

His downfall has seen him stripped of his royal patronages ‘with the Queen’s approval and agreement’ leaving him to fight the sex abuse lawsuit in America as a private citizen. 

Andrew has always vehemently denied the accusations. 

The Queen stripped Andrew of his royal patronages as well as his ‘HRH’ title in recent days, as a result of his legal battles

Prince Harry’s memoir is reportedly an additional source of stress for the family. Harry, who resides in California with his wife Meghan, 40, and their two children, Archie, two and Lilibet, born in June, will be publishing the book this year, the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

He has promised to give an ‘accurate and wholly truthful’ account of his life, writing as ‘the man he has become.’   

Prince Harry has been vocal about what he called the ‘total neglect’ of the royal family since his exit from royal life in March 2020. 

Following several TV appearances, including the Winfrey Interview and his talking heads in The Me You Can’t See for Apple TV, his memoirs will offer an in-depth look at his life in the public life, from his childhood to now.

The Royal Family is reportedly concerned about Prince Harry’s upcoming memoir, which will follow his controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey interview

His home life during the break-up of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage, the period of Diana’s death and its aftermath, Harry’s relationship with Camilla and past girlfriends are likely to form part of the book.

Having already been writing for a year, the prince is set to turn in a manuscript, which he promised will be a ‘first-hand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful’, by the end of this year. It is set to hit the shelves in 2022.  

In addition, members of the Royal Family will also have to prepare themselves for series five of Netflix drama The Crown, which has started filming and will dramatise a notoriously difficult period of time in their recent history.

It will cover the Queen’s ‘annus horribilis’, a Latin phrase meaning horrible year which she used in 1992 to describe the collapse of three of her children’s marriages – including Prince Charles’ to Princess Diana – and the fire that severely damaged her Windsor Castle home.

Prince Harry’s upcoming memoir could be the ‘last straw’ for the Royal Family, with relations reportedly said to be at ‘breaking point’, and his relationship with Prince William, seen here during the unveiling of the Diana statue at Kensington Palace on July 1 last year