Kate Middleton’s efforts to place herself in Prince William’s path have been a matter of tabloid speculation. She abandoned her plans to attend the University of Edinburgh and applied to St. Andrews University, the same school as William. Kate also took a gap year that coincidentally put the two in the same graduating class. “Here is a very strategic lady who knows what she wants and has got it,” author Robert Lacey told Elle in 2020. Pippa Middleton was equally careful about curating the company she kept.
“As soon as Pippa arrived at Edinburgh, she was assiduous about joining the right social circle,” a source told The Scotsman in 2008. “She was very charming about it, but quite ruthless in cultivating the ‘right’ friends.” The media rarely missed a chance to call Kate and Pippa the wisteria sisters to describe their accomplishments. That’s the moniker the Daily Mail used when Pippa snagged the top spot on Tatler’s list of Britain’s most eligible singleton in 2008, beating the likes of Princess Eugenie.
While Kate was the one who married into royalty, Pippa was more ambitious. “Kate was always quite jealous of Pippa. I sensed that she feared being eclipsed by her,” a family friend told The Scotsman. In some regards, she did. Thanks to her marriage to billionaire race car driver James Matthews, Pippa Middleton is more wealthy than Kate by quite a bit. If social climbing is what the sisters were after, they accomplished it.
