• There are no two ways around it—Kate Middleton’s parents Carole Middleton and Michael Middleton are critical and crucial parts of their daughter’s life.
  • The Middletons are a stable backbone, supporting Kate and her husband Prince William in happy times, and in trying times—like during Kate’s cancer battle in 2024.
  • The Middletons, unlike other royal in-laws in the past, don’t hold titles currently. Will that change when William becomes king and Kate becomes queen alongside him?

Kate Middleton’s parents Carole Middleton and Michael Middleton are stabilizing, grounding forces for the Princess of Wales and her family—but, when their eldest daughter eventually becomes queen, will they have any sort of royal title?

In the past, rumors have swirled that Kate’s younger sister, Pippa Middleton—Carole and Michael’s middle child, ahead of the baby of the family, James Middleton—might become one of Kate’s ladies-in-waiting (or companions, as they’re called now) when the time comes. But what about Carole and Michael, who have been steadfastly loyal to not just Kate but Prince William, too, becoming a second set of parents to him? Well, according to People, they probably won’t receive any titles.

Carole Middleton and Michael Middleton.

Getty

And, you know what? Not to claim to be inside their minds, but that’s how they’d probably like it. The Middletons support the Wales family of five all the time—at Wimbledon, Royal Ascot, Kate’s annual Christmas carol concert, King Charles’s coronation, and the like—but, ultimately, they’re private people. They don’t have noble titles, and they have held “normal people” jobs throughout their lives. Carole and Michael met while both were working at British Airways—she as a flight attendant, he as a flight dispatcher. Carole would go on to launch Party Pieces, a party supply company, with Michael’s support.

While Princess Diana was from an aristocratic family, Kate was, as the term dictates, a “commoner.” (Though, if you know anything about Kate, she’s anything but common.) According to People, “Royal titles are reserved for those born into or marrying into the family, while dukedoms and other noble titles are passed down through a family or granted by the reigning monarch.” As the outlet put it, anything could happen, but “the family of a queen consort has historically not been given such an honor.”

Carole Middleton and Michael Middleton at Wimbledon on July 9, 2021.

Getty

Even if Pippa—or Carole, for that matter—became one of Kate’s companions, that’s not the same as a royal title like the Princess of Wales or the Duchess of Cambridge, for example. Quite frankly, though, if past is prologue, it seems that Carole and Michael would rather just be Grandma and Grandpa Middleton—their preferred titles.

“Her parents are an enduring factor in the upbringing of their grandchildren,” a palace source previously told People, with Carole herself saying in a previous interview with Good Housekeeping that she wants “to run down the hills, climb the trees, and go through the tunnel at the playground. As long as I’m able to, that’s what I’ll be doing.”

“I cook with them, I muck around dancing, we go on bike rides,” she added of precious time with her grandkids.

Carole Middleton and Michael Middleton.

Getty

Per Cosmopolitan, though, there’s still a chance: the outlet wrote that “granting a title to the Middletons would certainly be unusual, and there’s no real precedent for titling a royal in-law since they’re usually titled to begin with.” The outlet added that Carole “could be awarded for her service and be known as Dame Middleton, but again, this is all just speculation.” The publication also cited a 2013 article from The Daily Mail that speculated that Michael could be named Earl of Bucklebury (the Middletons live in the village of Bucklebury, for context), noting that “the only other non-titled grandpa in the past millennium, the father of Edward IV’s wife Elizabeth, also had an earldom bestowed on him.” 

If it happens at all, this, as a more recent piece from The Daily Mail reported, “is more likely to happen when William becomes king.”