Being a princess is harder than people might think, there are engagements where the princess has to walk, smile and shake hands, sometimes all at once. Then, there is the burden of being in the public spotlight on a constant basis wearing dresses other women could only dream of trying on. Don't forgot about the hassle of carrying a diamond necklace around the neck and those diamond earring weighing down the earlobes.
All these troubling issues asides, English novelist, two-time Booker-Prize winner Hilary Mantel said, according to csmonitor.com, that the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, is a "shop-window mannequin with a plastic smile whose only role in life is to breed."
The writer's comments about the pregnant 31-year-old wife of second-in-line to the British throne Prince William sharply divided public opinion. Newspapers condemned Mantel's words as "venomous", "cruel" and "staggeringly rude", while supporters said it was a thoughtful analysis of the role of royal women over the centuries, according to csmonitor.com.
Mantel made these comments during a speech earlier this month when she added that as a royal consort, Kate "appeared to have been designed by committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished," reported Newsday.
This issue has caused some of England's Parliament members to comment.
Prime Minister David Cameron said that Mantel's comments were "completely misguided and completely wrong," according to The Press Association.
One Daily Telegraph journalist, Catherine Scott said that she feels Mantel wasn't attacking Middleton, but the media.
"[Mantel's speech was] an attack on how some parts of the media canonize royal women ... while also rendering them voiceless and purposeless."
The royal couple's office declined to comment.
Mantel, 60, won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2009 and 2012 for "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies," novels set at the court of King Henry VIII and centered on the king's search for a queen who will give him a male heir, according to Newsday.
During the same speech Mantel spoke about the late Princess Diana, stating, "Diana passed through trials, through ordeals at the world's hands" and, as a result, "Prince Harry doesn't know which he is, a person or a prince."
Newsday reported that Mantel ended her speech - "ironically, given the media furor - with a plea for us all 'to back off and not be brutes.'"
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
