After finishing her chemotherapy treatment last year, it was clear that Catherine, Princess of Wales, would take only measured and gradual steps back into public life.One notable step came the other day when she made her first public speech in two years. She spoke of her work promoting early childhood development and urged the 80 business leaders in attendance to see virtue in supporting caregivers and helping employees have healthy family lives at home.“As business leaders, you will face the daily challenge of finding the balance between profitability and having a positive impact. But the two are not and should not be incompatible,” Catherine told the Future Workforce Summit.A few days later, Catherine called for an end to the “stigma” that surrounds addiction.“By talking about it in the open, together we can bring addiction and the harm it causes out of the shadows,” she said in a message to mark Addiction Awareness Week in the U.K.“We can reframe this issue with kindness and understanding, and we can help individuals and families coping with addiction know they are not alone.”Catherine, Princess of Wales, right, visits a children’s mental health charity in north London on Thursday. (Geoff Pugh/Daily Telegraph/The Associated Press)In both instances — talking with business leaders and sending out the Addiction Awareness Week message — there were signals of the priorities Catherine has for her public work and how she is gradually and deliberately defining her role as Princess of Wales.It’s not necessarily easy.“It’s a tremendously daunting task because of the legacy of Diana, Princess of Wales, because of the popular associations in mainstream culture, the pedestal that Diana was placed upon as the ideal princess,” said Justin Vovk, a royal historian and member of the advisory board of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada.Diana, the late mother of Catherine’s husband, Prince William, became a high-wattage celebrity royal, one with personal struggles and an open way who seemed to make an emotional connection with people, even those who watched with interest from afar.Even in the 21st century, Vovk suggested, gendered views about royalty continue that, particularly for women, are unfair in terms of the expectations placed upon them in popular culture.There is, he said, the expectation that a princess has to be beautiful, perfectly dressed and say the right thing at the right time.“Everything has to be perfect, and if one thing is off, then it’s a social media scandal.”Catherine, Princess of Wales, front, speaks with attendees at the Future Workforce Summit in London on Nov. 18. (Adrian Dennis/The Associated Press)Catherine “has very big shoes to fill, and I think she’s still looking to define her role as Princess of Wales,” Vovk said, noting there was a relatively short period between her becoming Princess of Wales in September 2022 and stepping back after her cancer diagnosis in early 2024.With the speech to the business leaders, Catherine focused on issues that have been a priority for her.“Catherine’s continuing to build on her interest in advocacy for early childhood education and development,” Toronto-based royal author and historian Carolyn Harris said in an interview.As Catherine has been building on that interest, and others such as mental health, the public focus on her has evolved.“In some of her early public appearances in the first years of her marriage to Prince William, there was a lot of focus on her fashions and William and Catherine being a breath of fresh air for the Royal Family,” Harris said.Now, she said, “we’re seeing Catherine adopting a more serious public image, focusing very closely on the issues that she cares most about and also making very clear that she is back in the public eye.”WATCH | Princess of Wales says she will gradually return to public life:Princess Kate declares she’s cancer-free in polished, positive videoCatherine, the Princess of Wales, has finished her chemotherapy treatment, and will gradually be returning to public life. She shared the update, and reflections on her battle, in a rare, polished and positive video with her family.Catherine stepped away for several months after her cancer diagnosis and, Harris said, “there were real concerns about whether she would be taking up full-time public duties once more.”As much as Catherine can draw public attention to causes, there are limitations around what she might say or do.“The Royal Family can’t get too close to actual policy and politics,” Craig Prescott, a constitutional expert and lecturer in law at Royal Holloway, University of London, said in an interview.“They can raise an issue, but they can’t … say everyone should have a year’s parental leave or something, because that’s a matter for politics.”Catherine founded the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in 2021, and Prescott said it “has been really interesting” in the sense that it has brought a focus to a specific issue, commissioned research and made broad proposals.“But the difficulty is what happens to them after that,” Prescott said. “And that’s really for others to do as much as anything and for people in government to take notice, for other groups to take notice.”In the speech to business leaders, Catherine also focused on the theme of love.“My passion and the work of the Centre for Early Childhood stems from one essential truth: that the love we feel in our earliest years fundamentally shapes who we become and how we thrive as adults.”Love is also a theme for this year’s edition of the Christmas carol service Catherine hosts at Westminster Abbey on Friday.Prince William, left to right, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Catherine, Princess of Wales, attend the Together At Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey in London on Dec. 6, 2024. (Aaron Chown/The Associated Press)Vovk expects we will see more of her in the months ahead. And he expects there will be echoes of themes that were front and centre in her recent speech and recognition of Addiction Awareness Week.“I think that the branding and the messaging is going to stay the same,” he said.“William and Catherine are both very much, like [King] Charles, about consistency, duty, clear messaging.”A royal nod to Anne of Green GablesWhen Queen Camilla welcomed winners of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition to St. James’s Palace the other day, Canada — and a certain Canadian literary icon — were top of mind.“This year, many of the essays came from Canada, a country that is dear to both my husband and to myself, and which we were lucky enough to visit briefly in May,” Camilla told her audience.Over the past 10 years, there have been four winners and runners-up of the competition from Canada. Camilla suggested perhaps some of them had been inspired by “one of the world’s greatest children’s authors, L.M. Montgomery.”Camilla, who has a long-standing interest in promoting reading and literacy, also suggested this year’s winners had something in common with Lucy Maud Montgomery’s well-known redhead, Anne of Green Gables.Queen Camilla, centre, stands with guests, winners and runners-up of the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition during a reception at St James’s Palace in London on Nov. 20. (Yui Mok/The Associated Press)“Anne, like all of you here, is a passionate book lover and a gifted storyteller. As L.M. Montgomery said, ‘You have the itch for writing born in you. It’s quite incurable. What are you going to do with it?’”In the speech, Harris saw connections between Camilla’s interests in reading and the potential interests of Catherine, Princess of Wales, dating back to the first visit she and Prince William made to Canada shortly after they were married in 2011.That visit included considerable time in Prince Edward Island, where Montgomery set Anne of Green Gables.“There was widespread speculation that this extended time in Prince Edward Island reflected Catherine’s interest, that she was a fan of Anne of Green Gables,” Harris said.“Queen Camilla and Catherine, the Princess of Wales, they both seem to be prolific readers, and there’s clearly some overlap in terms of their tastes in both children’s literature and adult literature.”Camilla has also crossed paths with a latter-day Anne, meeting an actor playing the character while on a visit with Charles, then the Prince of Wales, to Charlottetown in 2014.Charles, then Prince of Wales, left, and his wife Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, share a laugh with actor Katie Kerr, who was portraying Anne of Green Gables, in Charlottetown on May 20, 2014. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)In her recent speech, Camilla noted some royal connections for Montgomery in Canada.Those references, Harris said, conflated three events in the late 1920s and the 1930s, including Montgomery’s receipt of an award in 1935 from the governor general of the day, Lord Bessborough, as part of King George V birthday honours.“Lucy Maud Montgomery throughout her life was quite interested in the Royal Family, and she proved to be quite an astute royal watcher,” Harris said, noting, for example, her journal account of a 1927 garden party in Toronto honouring the Prince of Wales of the day (the future King Edward VIII) and Prince George.“As she noted, the future King Edward VIII seemed bored and blasé, and she didn’t blame him, he had to meet 4,000 people, but she thought that he didn’t seem to be particularly enjoying himself and that would be very prescient going into the abdication crisis of 1936.”In her diary, Montgomery also recounts watching a military parade in Toronto during the 1939 visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.“She refers in her diary to George VI and Queen Elizabeth as our King and Queen and talks about how exciting this royal visit was. And it’s one of the last happy entries in her journal that … continues in subsequent entries to talk about her husband’s mental health struggles,” Harris said.Lucy Maud Montgomery was the author of Anne of Green Gables and several other books that featured her iconic character. (National Archives of Canada)There are also a lot of royal mentions in Montgomery’s works, Harris said.“There’s a reference in Anne of Green Gables where Anne says that she and Diana have discovered this new little island in the creek, and they’ll name it Victoria Island, because they found it on Queen Victoria’s birthday.”While Montgomery was interested in the Royal Family, that didn’t mean she idealized them, Harris said.“She noted that these were human beings who had complicated legacies and personalities.”Camilla ended her recent speech with a quote attributed to Anne, saying that she would heed it: “The point of good writing is knowing when to stop.”The quote, Harris noted, is actually spoken by another character, who seemed to be critical of female writers, in the fifth Anne of Green Gables novel, Anne’s House of Dreams.Queen Camilla, right, stands with Canadian-born author David Szalay, winner of the 2025 Booker Prize, at a reception for shortlisted authors, judges and supporters celebrating the prize and the newly announced Children’s Booker Prize, at Clarence House in London on Nov. 11. (Stefan Rousseau/The Associated Press.)“Another quote from the Anne of Green Gables series of novels spoken by Anne herself — or her inspirational teacher Miss Stacy — might have been a better choice for the speech.”Harris said it’s interesting to see Anne of Green Gables being highlighted now, given the timeless nature of some of its themes, such as friendship and family.“Clearly Queen Camilla sees the potential for Anne of Green Gables to speak to a whole new generation.”Keeping up the international connectionsPrince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, centre, meets participants in the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award during a visit to New Era Girls’ Senior Secondary School in Lagos, Nigeria, on Nov. 20. (Olympia de Maismaont/AFP/Getty Images)Two members of the Royal Family who have been doing a lot of international travelling were back home in recent days after trips to South and Central America and Africa.Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, wrapped up a visit to Nigeria and Ghana that focused on supporting young people and highlighting the positive impact of sport.Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Peru, Panama and Guatemala at the request of the U.K. Foreign Office and continued her travels in Belize as part of the Royal Family’s engagement with Commonwealth realms.Edward’s time in Nigeria included a forum for the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award in Lagos. Nearly 200 youth from 50 countries, including Canada, were at the event, which has been held previously in Toronto.“The U.K. is always trying to further and establish its place in the world, so to speak, that using the Royal Family in countries where we don’t necessarily have the strongest links, such as Guatemala and Peru, is perhaps no bad thing,” Prescott said.“I don’t know how these things were reported there, but just the presence of a member of the Royal Family might be particularly newsworthy, and that does the U.K. no harm at all in the very broadest of international contexts.”Vovk said that while there’s nothing unusual about senior members of the Royal Family being deployed around the world, he thought it was “quite telling” that the Commonwealth was being emphasized in the recent trips by Edward and Sophie.”There’s a very clear push from the monarchy right now to be shoring up those connections, renewing those connections, strengthening them with Commonwealth realms, because for the last six months to a year, maybe longer … the Crown has been very detained by issues at home.”Royally quotable“If we all want to continue to enjoy and benefit from the wonders of the natural world, we must not be the generation that stands by as wildlife and biodiversity disappears.”— Prince William, in a speech at the 2025 Tusk Conservation Awards.Prince William, right, claps after presenting the Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa to Kumara Wakjira during the ceremony for the 13th annual Tusk Conservation Awards in London on Wednesday. The awards recognize dedicated, forward-thinking individuals who are conservation leaders and wildlife rangers across Africa. (Yui Mok/AFP/Getty Images)Royal readsSweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia were welcomed to Rideau Hall by a small crowd of onlookers waving Swedish flags after they arrived in Ottawa for a three-day visit to Canada. [CBC]The Princess of Wales has encouraged people to embrace the “beauty of change” as she reflects on autumn as a season of deeper “connection” in her latest seasonal video as part of Kensington Palace’s quarterly Mother Nature series. [ITV]Princess Beatrice opened up about feeling “incredibly lonely” after the premature birth of her daughter as she called for greater awareness for others. [The Independent]The family of a woman who died after being hit by a police officer escorting a member of the Royal Family says the not-guilty verdict given to the officer who struck her sends a clear message that officers are “above the law.” [ITV]Prince William revealed his love of cold water swimming on a visit to meet people living in coast communities in north Wales. [BBC]The Prince and Princess of Wales shook hands with Paddington Bear and discussed marmalade sandwiches backstage at this year’s Royal Variety Performance. [BBC] Prince William, right, meets Paddington Bear at the Royal Variety Performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London on Nov. 19. (Jonathan Buckmaster/Getty Images)
A ‘more serious public image’: How the Princess of Wales is making it clear she’s back in the public eye
