Kate Middleton and Prince William visit the Foundling Museum

Kate Middleton cut an elegant figure today as she joined Prince William to learn more about the care sector during a visit to the Foundling Museum. 

The Duchess of Cambridge, 40, appeared in high spirits as she arrived for her first in-person event of the year at the museum in London, which tells the history of the Foundling Hospital, the UK’s first children’s charity which was founded in 1739 as a home for children whose mothers couldn’t keep or care for them.

The mother-of-three, who has been patron of the museum since 2019, offered a lesson in business chic as she stepped out for the event this morning, donning a black polo neck and recycling a long-line navy coat and her favourite pair of £130 Jigsaw trousers.  

The royal, who wore her brown locks down in a loose curly blow dry, added a touch of glam to her outfit with a dazzling pair of £7 earrings from Accessorize. 

Kate Middleton, 40, cut an elegant figure today as she joined Prince William to learn more about the care sector during a visit to the Foundling Museum

The outing marked the first joint in-person appearance for the couple of 2022, with the pair appearing in good spirits as they arrived at the museum 

The mother-of-three, who has been patron of the museum since 2019, offered a lesson in business chic as she stepped out for the event this morning, donning a black polo neck with dark wide-leg trousers and a long-line navy coat

The natural beauty kept her makeup to a minimum, with just a touch of blusher, nude-coloured lip and light layering of mascara.

The Duchess opted for her favourite pair of wide-legged trousers for the occasion, which she has worn on multiple occasions over the past year.

Kate, who is known for mixing high end designers with high street steals, also donned a trendy set of gold hoops from the cut-price store Accessorize. 

Online, the earrings, which are part of a 3-for-2 offer and have recently been slashed in price to just £2, are described as ‘the perfect pairing to give your daytime look some chic appeal.’

During part of their visit the couple will meet with well known faces who have direct experience of living in care. 

These include author and poet Lemn Sissay, former track and field star athlete Kriss Akabusi, and writer Allan Jenkins. 

Once inside the museum, the Duchess of Cambridge removed her  blue coat and appeared engaged as she spoke with those who have direct experience of  living in care 

William and Kate started their visit by joining a roundtable discussion bringing together experts and stakeholders from across the sector to speak about the wider landscape of care in the UK, the challenges that young people leaving care can face, including employment, housing, mental health and addiction, and the work that is being carried out to tackle these issues.

The Duke and Duchess will also meet a group of young care leavers to hear about some of the challenges they have encountered, and the impact of the support and training they are receiving through the Foundling Museum’s Tracing Our Tales programme.

Launched in October 2017, Tracing Our Tales is a unique programme which has been developed to equip young adults from London boroughs who have lived in care.

The programme provides paid employment and valuable life skills, including public speaking, critical and creative thinking, and people management, as well as skills in art and creative expression.

Through her work over the past decade Kate has seen first-hand how some of today’s hardest social challenges have their roots in the earliest years of a person’s life. She previously visited the museum in 2017 and 2019.  

During their visit to the museum today, the Duke and Duchess will learn more about the care sector and meet representatives from across the system, including those with direct experience of living in care during their visit to the museum

The royal, who wore her brown locks down in a loose curly blow dry, added a touch of glam to her outfit with a dazzling pair of earrings from Accessorize 

The natural beauty kept her makeup to a minimum, with just a touch of blusher, nude-coloured lip and light layering of mascara

Kate has long been committed to raising awareness of the importance of early childhood experiences and of collaborative action in order to improve outcomes across society

The visit comes after a former staffer said the Royal Family is desperate for ‘conventional performers’ as it faces a difficult year  and Kate is ‘what these troubled times need’.

With Prince Andrew’s legal battles, as well as the Firm’s concerns over the imminent publication of Prince Harry’s upcoming memoir, the Duchess has been touted as playing a key role in shaping the future of the Monarchy.

‘As the Prince Andrew scandal shows, the monarchy is in desperate need of reassuringly conventional royal performers,’ Patrick Jephson, former chief of staff for Diana, Princess of Wales, told the New York Post.

‘Catherine is just what these troubled royal times need – it’s no exaggeration that the Windsors’ future lies in her hands.’ 

Bethan Holt, author of The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style, told the publication that there ‘seems to be a campagin to make the Cambridges the family’s ‘global stars’ – adding that Kate is ‘clever’ in her ‘calculated move to include Diana’s memory alive’.

In a recent interview, royal expert and biographer Katie Nicholls said that the Queen, 95, already ‘hugely values’ Kate’s work, and will rely on her ‘more than ever’ amid the royal scandals. 

The biggest scandal facing the Firm at the moment is Prince Andrew’s upcoming civil case, after being accused of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress by Virginia Giuffre.

She claims that she was forced to sleep with the Prince on three occasions by US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell – the first time when she was 17 and under the legal age of consent under New York law.

A US judge rejected the prince’s bid to have his sex abuse case thrown out, leaving him facing the prospect of being cross-examined for seven hours on camera with embarrassing questions on everything from his sex life and ‘private parts’.   

His downfall has seen him stripped of his royal patronages ‘with the Queen’s approval and agreement’ leaving him to fight the sex abuse lawsuit in America as a private citizen. 

Andrew has always vehemently denied the accusations. 

Prince Harry’s memoir is reportedly an additional source of stress for the family. Harry, who resides in California with his wife Meghan, 40, and their two children, Archie, two and Lilibet, born in June, will be publishing the book this year, the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

He has promised to give an ‘accurate and wholly truthful’ account of his life, writing as ‘the man he has become.’   

Prince Harry has been vocal about what he called the ‘total neglect’ of the royal family since his exit from royal life in March 2020. 

Following several TV appearances, including the Winfrey Interview and his talking heads in The Me You Can’t See for Apple TV, his memoirs will offer an in-depth look at his life in the public life, from his childhood to now.

His home life during the break-up of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage, the period of Diana’s death and its aftermath, Harry’s relationship with Camilla and past girlfriends are likely to form part of the book.

Having already been writing for a year, the prince is set to turn in a manuscript, which he promised will be a ‘first-hand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful’, by the end of this year. It is set to hit the shelves in 2022.  

In addition, members of the Royal Family will also have to prepare themselves for series five of Netflix drama The Crown, which has started filming and will dramatise a notoriously difficult period of time in their recent history.

It will cover the Queen’s ‘annus horribilis’, a Latin phrase meaning horrible year which she used in 1992 to describe the collapse of three of her children’s marriages – including Prince Charles’ to Princess Diana – and the fire that severely damaged her Windsor Castle home.

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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk