In Russell Myers’s new biography of the Prince and Princess of Wales, there’s a passage I haven’t seen anyone else pick up on yet. In describing Catherine’s character and capacity for empathy, Myers points to her childhood years spent in Jordan as formative evidence of her tolerance and cultural openness.
The Middleton family moved to Amman in 1984 after the patriarch, Michael was offered a posting there as an aero manager for an international air station.
Catherine (then 4 years old), Michael, and Pippa Middleton in Amman, Jordan,
The family, Myers tells us, “moved to a city straddling modernity and a traditional Islamic society.” And eldest daughter Catherine, then 2 and a half years old, attended the £1,000-a-year Assahera nursery.
Here, days began with “a breakfast of hummus, cheese and labneh” before being offered “the opportunity to mix with children from a variety of backgrounds and cultures.” The pupils would recite nursery rhymes in both English and Arabic, learn about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, and hear “verses from the Quran,” recited by teachers to improve the children’s Arabic.
The implication is clear: through her early exposure to this “global appreciation for other cultural traditions,” Catherine grew into a woman broadened by the world. She was, after all, a future queen equipped to represent a modern, globally minded monarchy. It’s a nice story. It’s also doing (as so much of royal rota storytelling does) a lot of heavy lifting.
Prince William and Catherine made a celebrated “surprise” appearance at the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein of Jordan and Rajwa al Saif in 2023.
The Middleton family returned to the UK in 1986, after Carole found that she “wasn’t convinced I wanted to be an expat mum and Mike’s job there was coming to an end.”
What goes unexamined in Myers’ framing of this time is the nature of the cultural exposure itself. The Middletons were in Jordan for a finite posting. They left when it suited them and returned to England without their status having shifted in any direction. That is a particular kind of international experience, available only to people who move through other cultures without ever being subject to them.
When you are white, English, and financially comfortable, foreign places tend to receive you on your own terms. You become an “expat” who can absorb what you choose and leave the rest. You can return as tourists with your children when it suits you. That is enrichment, and it does have value. It is not the same thing as navigating “belonging” in a place that was not built for you.
It’s just worth keeping that distinction in mind as we consider how the institution has received others who took up places in the fold from “somewhere else.”
The British monarchy has spent the better part of the last three decades constructing a very particular image of itself as an institution that doesn’t just tolerate difference; no, we celebrate it!
Some of William and Catherine’s social media posts for Commonwealth Day 2026 (compiled by Access Hollywood).
The annual Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey is perhaps the most elaborate annual production of this idea. You’re meant to look at the music, the flags, the carefully curated representatives of the 56 member nations, the monarch presiding over it all, and think, wow, the Crown belongs to everyone.
Just like you’re meant to hear an account of a young Catherine happily attending school alongside Muslim children of a different color and earnestly believe this will translate to, one day, a truly benevolent center for a voluntary global family.
All of this makes it worth asking why, when Meghan Markle entered the picture, her own cultural background became something that required managing, rather than celebrating…or even “tolerating.”