Kate Middleton’s mother, Carole was reportedly “reduced to tears” over concerns about her son’s education, as revealed in a new biography.
The worry arose when Carole Middleton and her husband Michael questioned the value of their son James’ £32,000-a-year education after he repeatedly failed his school work.
James, who is the younger brother of the Princess of Wales, had to retake his A-level chemistry course four times at the esteemed Marlborough College in Wiltshire, where his sisters Kate and Pippa also studied, the Express reports.
In his new memoir Meet Ella, James shared that his mother was left distraught after his father deemed the private education a “waste of money.”
He wrote: “Meanwhile, I do so badly in my final school exams that my poor mum is reduced to tears. Dad says my expensive education has been ‘a waste of money’. After a year of resitting my A-levels, I scrape into Edinburgh University with the minimum permitted grades.”
Speaking to The Times, James added: “Mum and Dad just wanted the best for me.” The publication noted that James refrains from criticising his school or his parents, stating he learnt valuable survival skills at Marlborough.
James found solace in his love for nature and dogs amidst the school pressure, saying: “I was an outcast … alienated from my classmates. But dogs never judged me.
“Mum asked repeatedly if I wanted to bring friends home to stay at weekends. But truthfully all I wanted to do was to see Tilly.”
James eventually pursued studies at Edinburgh University, selecting modules in Criminology, Environmental studies, and Geography. He humorously remarked that his module choices were influenced by the belief they would be “pretty certain they would all be multiple choice”.
Despite his strategic approach, James admits to failing his first-year exams, leading The Times to observe: “More crying from Mum, more exasperation from Dad, more solace from a dog, this time his own.”
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