William and Kate at Austrian wedding
Although Kate Middleton has attended two Royal weddings alone this year, it’s nearly three years since Prince William joined her.

For more than a year, the couple appear to have had a marked reluctance to be seen together at formal occasions. That has changed in recent months and they are now regularly, if sparingly, spotted at functions in Britain and abroad.

On Saturday both were in Saltzburg, Austria, for the nuptials of their mutual friend Chiara Hunt, sister of Olivia Hunt who went to St Andrew’s University with them.

Kate was svelte in a knee-length dress and fitted jacket. The golden couple seemed happy to be photographed together and were thoroughly relaxed on one of their rare public outings together.

Singer James Blunt and TV presenter Ben Fogle, who is married to the bride’s other sister Marina, were also guests.

BBC pulls Diana documentary
After spending £200,000 ($350,000) on a new documentary about Diana, Princess of Wales, the BBC has decided to cancel it a year after the project began.

The film was presumably intended to update her biography in the light of the many new revelations arising out of the long and exhaustive inquest held by Lord Justice Scott Baker.

Both the BBC and Buckingham Palace denied that any pressure had been applied.

BBC produces exclusive Prince Charles 60th film
The BBC has been granted exclusive access to the Prince of Wales for a film marking his 60th birthday in November.

The event is being celebrated in style. Both Kate Middleton and Chelsy Davy, girlfriends of Prince William and Prince Harry, have been invited to a party and ball at Buckingham Palace — the first time either has attended such an event.

We must hope the BBC is careful with its editing this time around. Another bad splice of intimate footage and it could lose its Royal franchise forever.

Prince Harry gets motorbike licence
It is being reported that Prince Harry has obtained a full motorbiking licence and intends following his brother William into the superbike league.

The Prince was shown messing about on an old Army bike in a recent film shot when he was deployed to Afghanistan last winter.

As yet he has not bought a machine, but has access to William’s bike, which he rarely uses now.

William’s daredevil antics on two wheels brought protests from his protection team who found it difficult to keep up with him. He finally agreed to give it up when worries about his safety went all the way up to the Prince of Wales.

Harry is said to be even more expert than his brother and much more daring. How long before he faces a similar injunction, we wonder?

Some Royal observers are claiming that there appears to be another “turf war” between the rival courts and press offices of Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. This is an old story tracing back to the time of Diana, Princess of Wales, when the rival court was St James’s Palace.

Now it centres on the inexperienced figure of Kate Middleton, who must wonder why so much spite and bitterness is coming her way, not only from teenagers with a crush on her boyfriend, but from Palace sources.

Today’s little local difficulty is a symptom of a debate going on among some Palace courtiers, including close friends of the Queen. To understand it, you have to know something about the ancient traditions of Royalty.

Not so very long ago, it was regarded as a step down in Royalness for one parent to lack a Royal pedigree, even if the other was a Monarch.

For example, Prince Philip’s parents were both Royal, but the Queen’s were a King and an Earl’s daughter (a commoner). Prince William has the same “diluting” factor in his parentage, deriving from Diana, another Earl’s daughter.

While that may not matter a fig these days, the Middletons represent an even further diminution in Royal connections, including a link to a northern coalmining family on Kate’s mother’s side.

Many of the companions and friends of the Queen are much grander than she is in their personal attitudes and opinions. Some are known to be seething that William should even consider such a match, especially if they have an eligible daughter or granddaughter waiting in the wings.

Some have spoken to the press — Richard Kay has put it on record that he has been approached by a “close friend of the Queen” with anti-Kate sentiments.

It would be disingenuous to imagine that the Royal Family have not been affected by this febrile atmosphere, and even had doubts of their own.

The fact that William has stuck with Kate throughout all this is a good measure of his character. He has poignant memories of the long, vicious breakup of his parent’s marriage, which would add to his cautious approach to all things matrimonial.

I’ve written before that I think his, and Kate’s, lives would have been easier had he made his intentions clearer some time ago. Prince Philip’s advice, “Marry the girl or let her go,” was wise counsel.

However, William has used actions rather than statements to reveal his hand. Every invitation to a major Royal event for Kate speaks louder than words. That some people refuse to see that is a reflection on their own pig-headedness — or point-blank opposition to the match.

Royal Anecdotes received a strong tip some months ago that plans were being made for an announcement towards the end of William’s military training. It seemed good timing then, as it does now.

Perhaps while the Prince was yomping across wintry Dartmoor with a 60lb pack on his back, he saw Kate’s exposed predicament as good training for her future role. If she could survive that, she can come through anything.

One thing’s for sure, the final decision will emerge from as complex a soup of opinion, precedent, prejudice and resentment as any young couple have ever endured. It will truly be the road least travelled.

It falls to us here on this Royalist website to give them both the benefit of the doubt.

It’s good to see the Daily Mail threading a little light into the “Waity Katie” obsessions of some commentators and newspapers, including its sister paper, The Mail on Sunday.

On the website they quote a piece in Hello Magazine, in which friends of Kate Middleton rebut the constant stream of antagonism about Prince William’s girlfriend’s lack of “a job”.

Hello reports that Kate has been working full-time at her parents’ multimillion-pound business, Party Pieces, for several months in a 9-5 role editing catalogues for the mail-order children’s party props and costumes enterprise in Berkshire.

“She is annoyed at the headlines saying she doesn’t work,” according to a friend. “She is actually working full-time, is on the payroll, and plans to continue doing the job.”

The MoS stories about the Queen ordering her and Prince William out to work seem wide of the mark. It’s astonishing the Queen hasn’t made a fuss. She was livid with the BBC over their visual misquote in A Year In The Life Of The Queen, the corporation’s ill-fated, but ultimately rescued, documentary series.

The quoted “Royal aides” are clearly waspish towards Kate Middleton and are psychologically inept at best. You could walk an adult bull elephant through the holes in some of the stories. We’ve long suspected these are a self-selecting set with their own agenda to promote.

With Kate, it may be just a shift of tone here and there, as we’ve pointed out before, but it seems to convey the wrong impression of the Monarch’s wishes.

The Queen has always been reluctant to interfere in her children’s private lives. She’s not going to start now at the age of 82.

In an article in today’s Mail on Sunday, Katie Nicholl reports that friends of Prince William and Kate Middleton believe that an engagement announcement is planned for “just before or just after Christmas,” and that a wedding could be in May or June.

If an earlier story is true that Kate will not be at Sandringham until Boxing Day (December 26), it will clearly be just after, which seems like perfect timing to catch the world’s headlines.

The article, however, maintains the Mail’s new policy of acknowledging the Kate-hating crowd of spitting and cursing opponents of her match with the world’s most eligible batchelor. A section of the piece reprints some of the vituperative comments from the paper’s website.

A careful reading of the article reveals it’s in two parts. The first reflecting opinions of some Buckingham Palace courtiers, while the second part concentrates on the view from Clarence House.

These two courts have been at loggerheads with each other since the days of Diana, Princess of Wales. It seems the dogs of war have been unleashed again on the subject of the entirely innocent and inexperienced figure of Kate Middleton.

As Royal Anecdotes reported some months ago, there appears to be a growing faction of “courtiers” at the Palace who oppose the wedding of the two young people. They freely quote the Queen as insisting Kate should get a job and that “she’s not proactive enough.”

I believe there may be some noises of disquiet, particularly from Prince Philip, at the lack of a firm decision on this match. One can imagine him stating that Kate really should be doing something else while she waits. The aim, though, may be to prompt William into “marrying the girl, or letting her go” — a statement attributed to Prince Philip two years ago.

The anti-Kate faction in the Palace has picked up on this theme and translated it as the Queen’s wish that Kate “got a job.” This then becomes “work for a charity.” Have they forgotten that Kate was involved with a charity cross-Channel dragon-boat race last year but was asked to pull out for safety reasons by Clarence House? A dig at Prince Charles’s press team, perhaps?

The article ends with extensive quotes from the Clarence House viewpoint which show the truth at the heart of this story:

Despite this reluctance to co-operate with the Press, Kate’s friends say she has access to Press officers and senior aides at Clarence House, where she is free to come and go at her leisure.

“Kate has a hotline to Clarence House and she listens to everything the Royal aides tell her to do,” said a friend. “When they advised her to pull out of the cross-Channel dragon boat race last summer, she did it immediately. Kate is approached about doing lots of things but the Clarence House staff are often against her taking part because they think it’s too high-profile and they want to keep Kate out of the limelight. She’s in a bit of a Catch 22 situation.”

Royal Anecdotes believes that what is happening to Kate Middleton is very close to persecution. The wave of teenage angst she has had to face from many downmarket websites, including the Mail’s (which is moderated), is almost beyond belief since very few of the trolls will ever have met her. To quote the Kate-haters as proof of anything rational is tantamount to giving up on moderate and accurate journalism.

We’ve long stated that only a quick resolution by Prince William will spare his long-time girlfriend this avalanche of mindless criticism.

We are delighted that an announcement looks possible from Sandringham at Christmas.