Did Fergie’s Downfall Pave the Way for Carol Middleton? Expert Says It’s Only the Beginning
As scandal continues to follow Andrew and Sarah, Kate's family is quietly cementing its place within the firm.
The royals have always been particular about who sits in their box — which makes what happened at Cheltenham rather interesting. When Carole Middleton took her place alongside Queen Camilla and Anne, the Princess Royal, in the Royal Box at the Cheltenham Festival in March 2026, it was the kind of moment that royal watchers tend to file away carefully. To some, it may have looked like a pleasant day at the races. For the royal experts who always pay closer attention, it looked like something else entirely.
Several experts believe the appearance points toward something rather significant. With Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor firmly on the outside of royal life — exiled alongside his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson following the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal — a vacancy of sorts has opened up within the monarchy's inner circle. And it appears the Middletons may be quietly moving to fill it.
Correspondent Chris Riches, writing for the Express, rushed to connect the dots, noting that Carole slots naturally into royal company in a way that few outsiders ever manage. He then jumped straight to what has made that vacancy possible. "Once the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson had a position as a minor non-working royal," Riches wrote, "but the Jeffrey Epstein files have revealed that role as a front for her money-grabbing greed." The door, in other words, has been left wide open. "Now there is a spot for Carole to fill," he added, "which history may look back on as providing vital support to the future Queen Catherine and King William."
Royal biographer Ingrid Seward went further, suggesting that Carole's presence at Cheltenham was unlikely to have been accidental. An invitation to the Royal Box is not something that happens by chance — particularly when the Queen herself is hosting. "I believe she must have been invited by the Queen to have been in the Royal Box, since Her Majesty was hosting the box," Seward said. "If Carole were there for the whole day, she likely would have been a lunch guest too." It is the kind of quiet endorsement that speaks volumes without requiring a formal announcement.
It is a view echoed by royal author Robert Jobson, who told HELLO! that the Middletons have long since graduated from guests to something altogether more permanent. "The Middletons aren't guests anymore. They stopped being guests a long time ago. They're family," he said. That transition, Jobson was keen to point out, has been earned rather than assumed — built on years of loyalty, discretion, and refusal to exploit their proximity to the crown.
That reputation was only burnished further when Kate was diagnosed with cancer in 2024, with Carole stepping forward as an indispensable source of stability at one of the most testing moments the Wales family has faced. "I don't think you can put a price on that," Jobson added. And now with the monarchy navigating one of its more turbulent chapters, that kind of reliability is worth rather a lot.
