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| I want a William and Kate souvenir toothpick, please. |
Now, I have to admit I find it hard to get excited about the woman who will probably one day be Queen of England and mother of a king or queen. Something about her makes me glaze over and turn the page. Surely I should be in a froth of excitement – either monarchist or republican. She'll be filling a hugely important role in the mythology and psychology of Britain. She may well be the public face of Britain – or at least one of them for many years to come.
Even if you are not a supporter of the monarchy, its existence affects your personal identity as a Briton. I have yet to meet anyone in this country over the age of 30 who has not had a dream visitation from some member of the royal family. That's how deeply embedded they are in the national psyche. And, of course, everyone has an opinion – for or against.
As I suppressed a yawn, I realised that the dullness of Catherine is precisely the point. We don't need an exciting monarch, with, say, flashy good looks and a taste for expensive knickers and leopard-print bikinis.
No, we need boring, reliable, responsible, loyal, dutiful, presentable, conservative with a small c – and perhaps above all, discreet. We need a monarch who's like a nice apple crumble, or a steak and kidney pudding. We require comfort and predictability, and preferably someone with the fibre to go on and on and on. Someone, in short, just like the current queen, who, with Capricorn rising and Saturn at the top of her chart, fulfils all these needs admirably.
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| We don't have a birth time for Middleton, so I've set the chart for noon. |
I use the 1066 England chart, set for the coronation of William I, because that works well with this royal family. This gives the country a New Moon at 3° Capricorn, closely opposite William's. So this couple links in to one of the simplest astrological cycles – the waxing and waning of Mother Moon.
The Moon in the chart of a country symbolises the people, the mob, the masses – and in the chart of a person it is mother, nurturer, what we need. So William and Kate connect with the psychological needs of the people. (I'm really surprised, but there it is.)
Middleton's strong Cancer Moon is very sensitive. The Moon in its own sign makes for people who absorb atmosphere like a sponge and respond emotionally to life. Middleton is lucky to have planets in cool, clever Aquarius and earthy Capricorn to help her develop a strong carapace to protect that Moon. Moon in Cancer can also be ruthlessly selfish. What Cancer needs Cancer will get by hook or by crook. The earth and air part of her nature are certainly what we, the public, see of her.
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| England chart, 25 December 1066 |
She'll need to be the emotional rock in their relationship because he must have very intense feelings that are hard to deal with sometimes. His super-sensitive Cancer Sun-Moon is exactly trine Jupiter in that deep sign Scorpio. Middleton also has Jupiter in Scorpio trine her Moon, so she'll have an automatic emotional sympathy with him. (Since they were born in the same year, she and Prince William share most outer planet placements.) But because her Sun is earthy Capricorn, she is able to step back from her emotions and not identify with them completely.
Other astrologers have commented that she has very little fire in her chart, suggesting that this makes her cold. Well, we don't know her ascendant, which could make a difference. But I don't think lack of fire makes people cold, just not excitable. Besides it wouldn't surprise me if she had Leo rising.
What she has got a lot of is air – Mars, Saturn, Mercury, Venus and Pluto. I expect she's fair minded, charming, and (with the Cancer Moon) able to put people at ease. With that much air, she'll be able to distance herself from her own emotions and examine things logically.
She's probably also has a strategic intelligence, able to plan long-term and work out consequences. She would have made an excellent political operative. I bet she has an instinctive grasp of the big picture – how she fits in to the Royal Family's agenda and the nation's needs. She understands how the system in which she finds herself, the aristocracy, works.
It's interesting that she was dubbed Waity Katy by the press. Saturn, her Sun's ruling planet and "exalted" in Libra is super-powered in her chart. It's the planet of waiting, taking your time, planning. When Saturn is involved in anything, expect time to slow down. But patience and fortitude have paid off for Middleton, because marrying William will be the achievement of a long term goal. She's been playing a successful, if rather slow, marriage chess. Don't forget that more than most of us, she's marrying into a family; in fact she's is marrying an office and taking on an office by marriage, as well as marrying the man she loves.
Is she ambitious? Is the Mickey Mouse a cartoon? She has a dynamically ambitious chart focused on the partnership sign Libra, where she has the dark lord of power Pluto conjunct the lord of ambition Saturn at his most powerful too. These form a t-square, which is common, to the Sun (ego and father) and the Moon (needs and mother). Her parents are very ambitious for her too, but being grounded in the correct signs, their ambition has taken achievable form. None of this floating around with Neptune la la for them,
When she met William in 2001, her progressed Sun met her natal Venus, which is a real indicator of encountering a true love. So she knew back then that he was the one. Rather sweetly, the Prince's Venus has progressed to his Sun now, so I'm guessing he loves her much more now than he ever did before.
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| Prince William |
So there's no question that the untimely death of his mother Princess Diana defines Williams attitudes to women. I think he puts them on a pedestal, worships them and fears that they will be stolen away by forces beyond his control. Yet at the same time, he sees them as the connection to reality, the grounding force in his life. His long relationship with Middleton will have been a means of putting his fears and pain to rest, so that now he can love her as an adult. (I still think the ring is a bad move though.)
The point where Chiron is in a chart shows us where we may experience the greatest grief or injury but also where we become strongest through healing that pain. The simple interpretation in William's case is that he is marrying a strong, earthy, grounded woman.
Catherine Middleton has had Pluto the planet of power and transformation travelling through her Sun's sign Capricorn since 2008 and she will have it there for many years to come. In time, she will undoubtedly become the most powerful member of the royal family after the Queen.
This will be good for them but will it be good for us?
