Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011, was televised for millions of people around the world to see. So, when the Prince and Princess of Wales asked James Middleton, Kate’s brother, to have an important role in their royal service—which would require that he face his fears—he thought they were kidding. In his upcoming biography, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, which will be published on September 24, 2024, James detailed his reaction to their request and how he prepared.
The role? Kate and William asked James to read a passage from the Bible during their ceremony—an anxiety-provoking role for him due to his lifelong struggles with dyslexia. “The wedding was barely eight weeks away when Catherine and William, on the phone together and bubbling with excitement, asked me brightly if I might be up to doing a reading on their big day at Westminster Abbey,” Middleton says. “A reading? I thought they were joking. My mind raced back to school and my stumbling, incoherent efforts to read in front of the class. What were they thinking? Being dyslexic, reading is my least favorite occupation ‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘Seriously,’ they chorused. Oh no! I thought.”
Since James didn’t want to disappoint his sister and her then-fiancé, he decided to accept the job without voicing any of his concerns. “‘No problem at all!’ I fibbed breezily,” James recalls of their conversation. “If that was what my sister and William wanted, then of course I’d do my best not to let them down. Then they added: ‘This will be the only Bible reading in the service,’ and I didn’t know whether to be honored or appalled.”
To nail the ceremony reading for Kate and William’s wedding, James dedicated the next two months to practicing. In his biography, he writes that he carried the reading with him wherever he went, repeatedly “taking it out of my pocket to practice the lines,” so he could perfect his delivery. During these frequent rehearsals, James tried to overcome his personal challenges. He writes that he “tripped and stumbled, transposing syllables, getting my ps and bs—my nemesis—in a twist.”
In addition to spontaneously rehearsing the Bible reading on the fly, he says he practiced in front of others—including his dog, Ella. “Back at the flat, I practiced again and again, declaiming from my now crumpled sheet of phonetic text,” he writes. “Ella sat patiently on a chair in front of me. I’d occasionally put her name into the reading so her ears would prick up. I recorded myself doing the reading, and on long walks with Ella I’d listen to these recitals. Sometimes I’d say the words out loud as we walked.” He also read the words aloud in larger venues, so he could get familiar with the acoustics of Westminster Abbey.
Finally, once Kate and William’s wedding day arrived, and it was time for James to read the Bible passage, he encountered a near disastrous situation. “I walked up steadily to the lectern and stood, poised to begin,” he says in his book. “But where was my scruffy piece of paper? I couldn’t see it. Had it been thrown away? Panic almost overwhelmed me.”
Once he flipped over the page, he the paper. “Relief washed over me,” he continues. “I waited until the great Abbey fell silent. Ten, perhaps even 15 seconds. Then I counted slowly to four and all that could possibly go wrong flooded into my mind. Were my flies undone? Would I have a coughing fit? Would my voice squeak or wobble?” He also refrained from looking at his sister and William, so he wouldn’t “erupt into nervous giggles,” per his book. “I wanted to do them both proud,” he states.