The palace was worried Kate Middleton would go down the same route as Princess Diana

Sure, being a royal has its advantages – the fashion, the princes, the tiaras, the castles – but it definitely also has its drawbacks. And from the end of privacy and a hefty rule book to follow, to the dreaded rumour mill and being isolated from normal life, it can be a real challenge.

No one knows this more than Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, becoming a national treasure and therefore a paparazzi favourite since joining the royal fold.

Kate is now one of the most beloved members of the royal family, dubbed the "saviour" of the Mountbatten-Windsors, and credited with keeping the family afloat amid the past few troubling years. But according to royal sources, there were once fears that she would go down the same route as Princess Diana.

In fact, it is reported that the palace was determined not to have a repeat of Diana’s situation, where the bride who married into the family was cut off from her family and left feeling isolated and lonely.

"I think very much there is a feeling in the Palace that they want to learn from the mistakes of the past and didn’t want a royal bride who felt isolated and lonely and cut off from her family and miserable," royal commentator Katie Nicholl explained in the ITV documentary, Kate: The Making of a Modern Queen. "Because that has happened before and they didn’t want a repeat of Diana."

She continued: "So I definitely think courtiers were determined that Kate should marry into the family feeling as comfortable as possible. And I just don’t think William was going to take any chances ‒ I mean, he adores the Middletons. He has a very close relationship with Michael and with Carole, so he also did not want them to be sidelined as soon as Kate married into the family."

We will continue to update this story.