Wills’ Kate has literary links
THE lineage of royal bride-in-waiting Kate Middleton gets ever more impressive. Not only is Prince William’s well-heeled girlfriend a distant cousin of the late children’s author Beatrix Potter but, we have discovered, she is a long-lost relative of Swallows And Amazons creator Arthur Ransome.
According to Claudia Joseph’s revealing new biography, Princess In Waiting, Ransome’s sister Joyce was married to Hugo Lupton, the cousin of Kate’s great-grandmother Olive. Author Ransome – known for his series of adventures set around the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads – also wrote about the literary life of London and about life in Russia before, during, and after the revolution of 1917.
He remained a prominent figure on the London literary scene until his death in 1967.
Despite her literary heritage Kate, 27, has made it clear her ambitions lie in the world of visual arts. Photography, it is understood, is where she sees her future.
