Why Prince William Finally Proposed to Kate Middleton

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published 9 March 2019

Prince William and Kate Middleton dated for nine years before they eventually got engaged in 2010.
Will was famously reluctant to move toward marriage and the couple took several breaks before getting their happily ever after.
According to royal biographer Marcia Moody, it was the domestic bliss the couple enjoyed when living together in Anglesey before their engagement that motivated Will to finally pop the question and take the next step in the relationship.

Prince William famously took his sweet time proposing to Kate Middleton. The couple had been together for nine years when Will finally popped the question. So what made Will decide the time was right to propose to Kate in 2010? According to royal biographer Marcia Moody, it was living together in Anglesey that ultimately changed Will's mind about marriage.

In her 2013 book, Kate: A Biography, Moody wrote about the couple's time living together in a five-bedroom beachside farmhouse, in rural Anglesey before they got engaged.

"[William] and Kate had spoken of marriage and they knew it was on the cards but it hadn’t been the right time, until now," she wrote of the magical time in their relationship, according to Express.

Moody continued:

"Over the couple of years while they were based there, Kate looked after everything related to their home. Unlike other royals before him, William employed no domestic staff and Kate took care of it all...They both knew what was coming and knew that, although many good things would follow, it would also mean a life of increasing duty and less time to themselves."

That period of domestic bliss was apparently the turning point in Will and Kate's relationship, and in October 2010, he officially got down on one knee and invited Kate to join the royal family.

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Kayleigh Roberts is a freelance writer and editor with over 10 years of professional experience covering entertainment of all genres, from new movie and TV releases to nostalgia, and celebrity news. Her byline has appeared in Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, The Atlantic, Allure, Entertainment Weekly, MTV, Bustle, Refinery29, Girls’ Life Magazine, Just Jared, and Tiger Beat, among other publications. She's a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.