While Kate Middleton had to wait seven years before Prince William got down on one knee, she apparently knew the moment would one day come because she and Will had a marriage pact.
After four years of dating, Kate Middleton and Prince William ended their relationship. Luckily, the split didn’t last long, and when the pair reunited shortly after, things got serious fast. They made a pact to get married.
“There on the paradise island, William promised Kate that he was in the relationship for the long term,” wrote royal expert for Vanity Fair and best-selling author Katie Nicholl in her new book Kate: The Future Queen. “For the very first time, they talked seriously about marriage, and with the ocean before them and beneath the night sky, they made a pact to marry.”
The agreement was to help take the pressure off their relationship by promising that they would end up together.
According to Nicholl, Kate wanted some clarification from William about where the relationship was heading as they had already been dating for four years without a proposal.
Talking of the split to Tom Bradby during their engagement interview in 2010, Prince William said, “We were both very young. It was at university, we were sort of both finding ourselves as such and being different characters and stuff, it was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up.”
“I think I… at the time wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person,” added Kate.
Three years after the pact, Kate and Will finally got engaged. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have now been married for eight years.