The 11 Biggest Revelations from James Middleton’s Memoir

1. James’s discussions of his mental health, and struggles with suicidal thoughts.

While James has previously opened up about his battles with depression, this is the first time he goes into detail about his struggles—and his suicidal thoughts. In fact, the very first chapter of Meet Ella, the prologue, is titled “My Darkness Night,” and recounts one November 2017 evening when he went to the roof of his apartment building and contemplated ending his life.

“As I pace, I look down through the skylight and see my spaniel Ella’s gentle eyes looking back up at me. Like me, she has been wakeful all night. She senses my strange, agitated state of mind. She cannot climb the ladder – I would not want her to; it is too dangerous on the exposed rooftop and there are no safety rails – but she is standing at the foot of it imploring me with her eyes to come down,” he writes, explaining how Ella truly saved his life that night; he didn’t want to leave her alone.

2. Prince William doesn’t like the “competitive nature” of the Middletons.

William plays cards with the Middletons in a recently-released video that had an update on Kate’s cancer journey.

After James gets Ella, he tells Kate and William before he tells his parents, and writes about how William, in particular, loves the pup. “He is so genuinely fond of Ella,” James writes. “When he first encountered her as a tiny puppy at Bucklebury, he was smitten.He’d had a black Labrador, Widgeon, when he was a boy, and when he died he left an empty space. I felt William was pining for a dog when Ella was around.”

James continues, “I know, too, that Ella gives him a good excuse to escape the fiercely competitive nature of the Middleton family, which emerges every time we play our favourite fast-paced card game, racing demon. It involves multiple decks of playing cards and is often described as a more cut-throat form of patience or solitaire. Our family have enjoyed it for generations. My paternal grandmother was so good at it that even in her early eighties she would thrash us.

“William flinches at our ruthless determination to win at all costs. He’s delighted to be the first out, and when no longer compelled to take part, he slinks off to cuddle Ella. I think he’d prefer to absent himself from the game entirely. ‘James, does Ella need a walk?’ he asks before we’ve even started dealing the cards. My sisters and I exchange a knowing glance: William, for all the competitive rigour of his military training, is happy to be a loser at cards.”

3. Kate told her family she was engaged just 48 hours before the news was public.

Clarence House announced the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton on November 16, 2010.

William and Kate announced their engagement to the world on November 16, 2010—and turns out Kate’s siblings Pippa and James found out just two days before, on November 14.

The Old Boot Inn at the village of Stanford Dingley, West Berkshire.

“Our family know a day or so before it is officially announced in November 2010. Catherine, Pippa and I go out for a walk with Ella and Tilly to our local pub, The Old Boot, in a village close to Bucklebury,” he writes. “We sit in a corner, chatting quietly, catching up on our lives. Catherine whispers the news and says it will become public in the next day or so. Pippa and I want to be visibly excited, but we have to tamp down our emotions so no one suspects a thing. We make a quiet acknowledgement that we’ll always be there foreach other, look out for one another, support each other. No matter how crazy things get.”

He adds, “Our first priority is to keep their secret for 48 hours. Mum and Dad know, of course, but we don’t discuss it again. We’ve learned to keep confidences close.”

Carole and Michael at their home on the day William and Kate’s engagement was announced.

4. “Nothing” escapes Queen Elizabeth’s notice.

Queen Elizabeth, 2018.

Naturally, the main royals to appear in Meet Ella are Kate and Prince William, but Queen Elizabeth gets a surprising amount of mentions as well. When the Middletons stayed at Sandringham, James notes, Queen Elizabeth allowed Ella to stay in his room—an “unprecedented” privilege for the dog.

On one occasion, however, Ella escaped his room: “On one visit I didn’t close the bedroom door properly, and Ella, unaware of the protocol, made it her mission to find me and demonstrate her annoyance at being left behind. I didn’t realise this until a footman glided up to me and whispered, ‘I believe your dog has found her way into the kitchen.’”

He writes later on in the chapter, “I didn’t imagine the Queen would ever find out about Ella’s little adventure into the Sandringham kitchens either, but nothing escaped her. She said to me, ‘I hear Ella had a nice little wander round earlier,’ and I apologised profusely, expecting a gentle telling-off. Instead, with the understanding that comes from long association with dogs, she gave me a conspiratorial smile and said, ‘Well, dogs will be dogs.’”

5. Kate stayed at Bucklebery when she was pregnant with George.

“In the summer of 2013, Catherine was preparing for George’s birth,” James writes. “She’d been spending a lot of time at Bucklebury because she had acute morning sickness – hyperemesis gravidarum – for the whole of her pregnancy and Mum was looking after her. I was still doing the back-to-front commute from the family flat in Chelsea to work in Berkshire, and sometimes I’d pop in to see Mum, Dad and Catherine. It was a glorious summer and the whole world, it seemed, knew that Catherine was pregnant, so people were constantly asking: ‘Any news?’”

After George was born in July 2023, Kate went back to Bucklebery with her newborn. At the time, James was caring for an injured dog, Zulu. He writes, “Both of us would wander round at night – she to feed George, me to check on Zulu –and we welcomed the chance for a chat in the early hours.”

6. The Middleton siblings went to therapy together.

As James starts therapy for his depression, he slowly opens up to his family—and asked them to join him in a therapy session. While he’s shared that he went to therapy with Kate and Pippa before, he never went into the details, as he does in Meet Ella.

“Then Catherine and Pippa come on board, and they understand straight away. They come to a session with me, and the fact that they are here, wanting so much to help me, makes me burst into tears,” he writes. “I did not tell even Dr Pereira how closely my thoughts had wandered towards suicide. It is he who, with my consent, now talks to my sisters, simply because I find it so hard to articulate what has been going on in my mind. It is the first time they become aware of the extent of my struggles. They listen and learn. Catherine has already done a lot of work with the mental health charity Heads Together, and she asks Dr. Pereira some pertinent questions. She understands so much. I’m overwhelmed. I feel such gratitude and admiration for her, for her knowledge and compassion.”

7. Alizee met Kate and William for the first time in a state of undress.

Alizee and James in 2019.

James’s wife, Alizee Thevenet, is also frequently featured in the text. One notable moment mentioned is when Alizee meets the Middletons for the first time. After attending a wedding not too far from the Middleton family home, Alizee and James impulsively decide to stay over instead of going back into the city.

“I’m woken at 7.30 a.m. by giggling at the bedroom door. It’s George and Charlotte, my nephew and niece. I didn’t realise all three children are staying for the weekend with my sister and William,” he writes. “Alizee is still sound asleep, so I gently shush the children and we go downstairs, where Catherine and William are drinking their early-morning tea. I’m about to take a cup up to Alizee when she appears at the kitchen door. She has just got out of bed, her hair still tousled, and she is wearing one of my shirts.”

James continues, “In situations like this, Alizee is wonderfully French. She does not panic or rush upstairs to get dressed. Instead she just greets everyone warmly as if it’s not remotely unusual to be meeting her boyfriend’s sister and brother-in-law for the first time wearing only an oversized man’s shirt. ‘Hello,’ she says, proffering her hand, and with no awkwardness at all we’re soon all chatting amiably and the children are asking all kinds of cheeky questions at a hundred miles per hour.”

Later on in the chapter, James reflects on the first meeting between his future wife and his family. “I knew my family would make Alizee welcome. What I feared was that they might overwhelm her. But she is not remotely overawed by our royal connection. Catherine and William are just my sister and brother-in-law as far as she is concerned, and she is delighted to spend a day with them,” he writes. “So when we all hug goodbye, I get a special squeeze from Catherine, who whispers in my ear, ‘She’s just great,’ and Mum’s warm smile tells me she agrees.”

8. Queen Elizabeth is very good at jigsaw puzzles.

During one Christmas at Sandringham, James and the Queen did a puzzle together. “One year the Queen and I sat down to do a jigsaw puzzle,” he writes. “It was the sort of activity I’d have enjoyed with my own grandparents, all four of whom had died in the space of three years when I was a teenager. So in a way, I felt the Queen was filling a granny-sized void in my life. And there we were, engaged in this every day pleasure, which was elevated to the extraordinary by the company I was in. It still feels surreal, the fact that I was there with the Queen: I look back on it with amazement.”

James continues, “She frequently put down five pieces to my one, deft-fingered while I was inept, scanning the board with practised eyes, not even stopping when people came to talk to her, but still chatting as she slotted in the pieces. I hoped she wouldn’t notice how little I contributed.”

9. Pippa’s husband’s home played a key part in James’s recovery.

View over Loch Affric from the western end of Glen Affric.

“Affric Lodge is one of those glorious Victorian houses that feels just right for Christmas,” James writes of the estate. “A sturdy, turreted stone mansion on the edge of a tranquil loch, it has views over the Highland Hills, log fires that blaze a welcome, comfy sofas, and sporting scenes by Sir Edwin Landseer festooning the drawing room.” He spends Christmas 2017 there with his family, and “rare moments of happiness were starting to coalesce into hours of contentment.”

Later on in Meet Ella, he says Glen Affric “played a formative role in my recovery.”

10. Kate had her grandparents’ furniture when she was a student at St. Andrews.

When James writes about moving into his new house, he notes, “There are all kinds of heirlooms: pieces of furniture from my grandparents’ home that Catherine originally had at St Andrews University then passed on to me.”

11. Kate and Pippa gave him hand-me-downs for his newborn son.

Days after Inigo is born, the Middletons come visit. “We are an affectionate and close-knit family and there are lots of hugs and laughter,” James writes. “Catherine and Pippa bring two big suitcases of hand-me-down clothes, so Inigo’s cupboards are full of sweet little outfits his cousins – even the girls – have worn.”

Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.