The dutiful Duchess: pregnant Kate Middleton marks two years of royal engagements


February 23, 2013

The former Kate Middleton has made a speedy transformation from ordinary Berkshire girl-about-town to the royal consort with the wow factor and on 24 February, the Duchess of Cambridge marks two full years on the royal stage. Her first official engagement with Prince William took place two years ago at a boat-naming ceremony in Anglesey, Wales, where the couple now live. Although confident, Kate took her cues from the Prince, a seasoned public figure.

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William and senior members of the royal family have since provided Kate with a steady, supported training plan which she has executed perfectly. To date, she has made 112 public appearances, 36 of which took place on foreign soil. Certain obstacles have arisen despite the Windsors' best efforts to smooth their newest member's path to public duty. But challenges to date have appeared at crucial times for Kate, as if to test her mettle. Topless photographs of the Duchess surfaced as she represented the Queen during 2012's Diamond Jubilee tour of the South Seas, and she showed the kind of stoic professionalism that would have made the monarch proud. The comments of novelist Hilary Mantel, who described the pregnant royal as "a shop-window mannequin, with no personality of her own", came as Kate returned to work in her role as patron of Action on Addiction. The world's media watched, awaiting the slightest signs of anxiety or annoyance.They got only smiles as Kate toured Hope House and showed solidarity with women at the all-female treatment centre. Kate has come far since the litmus test which was carried out on that windy Welsh day two years ago. HELLO! Online documents her evolution.

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