How Britain fell in love with the Duchess of Cambridge

Watch the full episode 18 of Yahoo UK’s show ‘The Royal Box,‘ here.

The Duchess of Cambridge has now been a royal for eight years and there appears to be more public affection for her than ever.

Kate, 37, is the fourth most popular royal, behind Harry, the Queen and husband William.

PR expert Nick Ede tells Yahoo UK‘s ‘The Royal Box,’ that public affection for the duchess stems from the fact that “we’ve grown up with her.”

Kate began dating Prince William in 2003, when they were studying at the University of St Andrews. After a long courtship and a brief split in 2007, the pair announced their engagement in November 2010 and were married the following April.

Fast-forward eight years and the couple are parents to three children, Prince George, five, Princess Charlotte, three, and 11-month-old Prince Louis.

Royal journalist Victoria Murphy says Kate has “really earned her position.”

“We see that she’s got eight years of royal duties, we see that she’s taken on charitable causes,” she says. “I think she’s actually made a lot of things look very easy that aren’t easy, with the exception, I would say probably, of public speaking, which I don’t think comes naturally to her.

“I think in a way that’s shown how good she is at everything else – the fact that she has struggled a little bit there.”

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While Kate has always seemed to be fairly shy, she appears to have grown in confidence in recent months.

Since returning from her third bout of maternity leave last October, she has dedicated herself to early years intervention and is reportedly set to launch a solo initiative to help disadvantaged children this year.

Kate made an impromptu speech at the Mental Health in Education conference in February and has added to her list of patronages – her most recent being the Foundling Museum.

She was also said to be the brains behind Heads Together – the joint mental health campaign with William and Harry.

Murphy adds: “I think she’s got quite a lot of inner strength actually, I think she’s quietly very strong, she’s not sort of an extroverted type of character, but I think she’s a real kind of rock for William actually in a lot of ways.”