On her 44th birthday, Princess Catherine is quietly reshaping royal life after cancer

As 2026 approached the Prince and Princess of Wales posted a social media carousel of a dozen never-before-seen photographs from the year gone by.

A reflective close-up of lighting candles on Holocaust Memorial Day. A behind-the-pomp glimpse of Trooping the Colour. Catherine presenting Italian tennis champ Jannik Sinner with the men's singles Wimbledon Championship trophy in July, when she made an eagerly awaited return to public life, her cancer now in remission.

These were the couple's favourite moments, we were told.

Then, on New Year's Day, another set of candid snaps was released, still focusing on royal work. US President Donald Trump was in there from his glitzy UK state visit, after which the president called the Princess of Wales "radiant and so healthy and so beautiful".

There were plenty of cute cameos of the Wales children too.

Prince George, 12, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, seven, are currently sitting at second, third and fourth in line to the throne. The Wales family is surely the monarchy's trump card and here they were, a picture of duty, love and unity.

"Thank you for a brilliant 2025 and looking forward to 2026," announced the caption.

Such heavily curated set pieces are designed to show family life intertwined with royal service and have become a cornerstone in William and Catherine's media strategy. On Instagram those images translate into hundreds of thousands of likes and millions of followers globally.

It's a different, deliberately more contemporary approach to marketing the Windsor brand and in the UK it's working.

2025 has been an extremely challenging year for the royals. When the King stripped his brother Andrew of his remaining titles at the end of October, he made history.

Advisors hoped for closure but in the wake of that momentous decision, the Epstein scandal continues to trundle on with a drip feed of disturbing emails and documents from the US Department of Justice causing continued reputational damage to the House of Windsor.

Meanwhile the sideshow of a lack of genuine family reconciliation with Prince Harry adds to the negative headlines.

Catherine, Princess of Wales turns 44 today and in the latest UK YouGov popularity poll she tops the list for the first time with 68 per cent of respondents having a positive opinion of her.

Husband William is second with 62 percent.

In the international arena, Catherine comes in second behind her late mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth II on a list of most popular public figures around the world and just ahead former US president Barack Obama and current Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Impressive results, especially when set against the monarchy's current tricky public profile.

In April, William and Catherine celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary and this year, more than any other, marks a fresh start for the "Wales fab five".

In September 2025 the family quietly moved into what has been called their "forever home" - Forest Lodge, a grade II listed historic Georgian mansion tucked away in a private corner of Windsor Great Park, close to the castle but separate from it.

That's important.

Fences and an exclusion zone around the eight-bedroom property's site raised a few eyebrows with locals, but security is paramount for the family of this king and queen in waiting.

"Moving into Forest Lodge has opened a new chapter allowing them to put some of the unhappier memories of things that happened while they were in Adelaide Cottage behind them and look forward," says a royal aide, referring to the smaller Windsor home the family was living in when the Queen died, Prince Harry launched his troublesome TV and memoir bombshells, and King Charles III and Catherine faced cancer diagnoses within weeks of each other.

"Forest Lodge is somewhere they want to stay for the long term. It's their intention that they'll stay there at the point of transition [when William becomes King]," notes the aide.

In the few months they've been in the house the family has been "incredibly happy. So there's a real sense that this is somewhere that they're going to be for a very long time".

That the couple is unlikely to live in Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle may come as a blow to traditionalists, but the decision says a lot about the importance of "normal" family life to Catherine and William. Their children are still growing, and establishing a stable sanctuary of family nurture underpins their parenting ethos.

"The children are at the centre of their universe and as they think about their life, particularly over the next 10 years, they really want to continue to be as hands-on with them as possible," adds the aide.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor will no longer be a neighbour following his eviction from nearby Royal Lodge. Prince William and Catherine have kept their distance from the beleaguered royal for some time now.

As for Prince Harry, sources say the concept of a reunion is a media confection the couple is not engaging with.

"Harry brings with him all the drama that they just don't want in their lives," says long-time royal correspondent and author Robert Jobson, whose new book The Windsor Legacy explores the resilience of the current monarchy.

"The Duke of Edinburgh used to say you have just got to get on with it, and I think both William and Kate have got that attitude."

King Charles's mid-December announcement that his cancer treatment will be scaled back this year after a positive prognosis from doctors has allowed the Wales family to draw breath and steady their own ship. Catherine's experience with cancer has taken its toll but more than anything it's given her a laser-focus on what's important to her as a human being, a wife and a mother.

"William and Catherine were always close, but I think they're even closer now because one realises how precious that person is," says Jobson. "They seem more tactile in public, less worried about getting things a hundred per cent right … more natural, actually. I think that they've become more religious as well. They have their faith and I think they realise just how fragile life is."

Catherine has taken the lead with a string of videos showing her holistic perspective on life's big questions. The importance of love, nature, togetherness and supporting each other are regular themes, with the tone more influencer than princess. From these you get a sense of the Wales approach to being royal. Prince William calls it royalty with a small "r".

Jobson says the media liked those videos for the intimate family scenes but doesn't feel they connected with the public.

"Most people have other things that they're worried about and slow-motion pictures of very wealthy, happy people wandering through fields hand-in-hand is well… rather twee."

Long before stepping back from the day job to concentrate on her cancer treatment and recovery, Catherine's number of public engagements compared to other royals and to previous principal royal wives was noticeably low. She faced considerable criticism from the British press but stood firm.

Catherine's steely approach to royal work may seem "quite revolutionary", says Jobson, but it's a throwback to earlier eras.

"In modern times Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson, then Duchess of York, were pushed into these very busy roles, because that's what was perceived to be necessary. But there was no real historic need for them to be as busy as they were," Jobson explains. "Princess Alexandra [the late Queen's first cousin] didn't really do that much publicly, despite being a working royal. She would open the odd hospital, but never really had the career that royal princesses of today are expected to."

Princess Catherine may be in a highly privileged position, but that idea of managing work/life balance is cutting through.

Behind the scenes life is as lowkey as it can be.

The couple retains the same nanny they've had for more than a decade, Maria Teresa Borrallo - who was quietly awarded a Royal Victorian Medal (silver) in this year's New Year's honours. But Borrallo doesn't live in and that will not change in Forest Lodge.

At home, Catherine has recreated the middle-class family life she grew up with. Her parents are key figures in her children's world and she and William share the load on the school run.

In a recent interview William revealed that George, Charlotte and Louis are not allowed mobile phones and Catherine regularly talks about the dangers of too much screen time on young minds in her work on children's early learning. Nature, the outdoors, wholesome pursuits - this is the environment the Wales couple pursue for their children.

One thing the couple can't change, however, is their destiny. Jobson says that George and Charlotte will have no option but to follow their parents into the family "firm".

Prince Louis may have wider choices.

"Since the change in the law of male-preference primogeniture in 2011, Charlotte is the spare now. So it's not so necessary for Louis to have a full-time royal role and, given what's happened with Harry, I expect that William and Catherine will encourage him to find something that he wants to do with his life, as well as being a royal prince; a passion and desire that gives him personal fulfilment," muses Jobson.

Already last year we saw Prince George on official duty with the King and Queen at the Festival of Remembrance in London's Royal Albert Hall. Princess Charlotte was a commanding presence centre stage playing a piano duet with her mother in the Together at Christmas carol concert TV broadcast. And so far, both seem to be coping ably with the spotlight.

Later this year George will start at a new school, yet to be announced. His parents' alma maters - Eton and Marlborough - are certainly in the mix but other less obvious establishments have also reportedly been visited by the couple who want to do things their way.

In the meantime, Catherine's gradual return to full-time royal work continues with her team at Kensington Palace mindful that as she has said, the road back from chemotherapy is a long one.

Last year's glittering appearances at state visits by Presidents Macron, Trump and Steinmeier went down a storm. A return to the US alongside Prince William has been tentatively talked about for 2026.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has invited the couple to revisit Australia with the children in tow, but there's nothing on the table at the moment.

On the domestic front, the content of Catherine's royal work is very much a personal call and, echoing her husband, shows a distinct change in emphasis from the more typical royal hand-shaking. Ribbon cutting is replaced with a smaller number of passion projects, a roll-your-sleeves-up approach reminiscent of both Prince William's parents, but without the distractions of the more mundane run of incessant patronages.

When she and William became Prince and Princess of Wales following the death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022, they set about reviewing their work portfolio to concentrate on their interests.

This year marks 10 years since Catherine became patron of Anna Freud, a pioneering UK mental health charity, transforming care for children and young people through science, collaboration and clinical innovation. She was eager to deepen that work.

Chief Executive Eamon McCrory met Catherine in 2015, when she was attending a conference on mental health he was speaking at.

"My first impressions were that she is passionate, curious to learn more about mental health, and motivated to create change," he says.

Behind the scenes the Princess is a natural nerd and her diligent approach to research is said by many in the charities she works with to be her modus operandi. She thrives when throwing herself into long-term projects and considers raising awareness for early learning needs her "life's work".

"Her Royal Highness's work across both her own and the Prince of Wales's different charitable patronages, which includes organisations combating mental health, homelessness, and addiction, has given her real insight into how so many individual and societal problems have their roots in early childhood," explains Professor McCrory.

"This has motivated a focus on the early years as the core pillar for healthy development including, more recently, a focus on the key role played by social and emotional development.

"Working to ensure that all children and young people have the foundations for a happy, healthy life requires both evidence, which takes time to build, and significant work, which the Princess understands."

Catherine made her first long distance royal visit after finishing chemotherapy in January last year to Ty Hafan, a children's hospice in south Wales. Even though the trip was unannounced the media coverage was immense. While journalists and crowds gathered outside the centre, Catherine settled in with children and parents.

"It was meeting, talking and connecting in very empathetic, day-to-day terms. I don't doubt for a moment that many of my colleagues and many of the families that were with us on that day felt nerves, excitement, apprehension, but they were soon put at their ease. And I think that is down to how she presents herself to them," says the centre's chief executive Irfon Rees.

The Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, Dean of Westminster, has seen the same instinctive public connection at the Princess's annual carol concert at Westminster Abbey.

"She's charming, very bright and very focused. She's one of those rare people who neither apologises for herself, nor is she over assertive. Most of us do one or the other," he says.

The Very Reverend Dr Hoyle believes Catherine is deservedly popular.

"Like other members of the royal family, she works very hard at this," he says. "What people don't see is that she's in the abbey an hour before the service, walking round talking to people. She does that very graciously, very gracefully, very easily."

When I ask the Dean what sort of queen he thinks Catherine will make, he is immediately reminded of King Charles III's coronation.

"There was a moment when I watched the King - who by this stage we had robed fairly magnificently - put a crown on his head and he was holding a rod and a sceptre … and it suddenly struck me just what we expect of our royal family - how difficult it is to be literally loaded with expectation, and to be subject to that kind of gaze," he says.

"I think a beautiful young woman is subjected to an even more challenging kind of gaze and that's a heavy burden to bear. Princess Catherine has extraordinary dignity and consistency and she seems to me to have a gift for authenticity. She manages to keep being herself," says the Dean. "I think it's too early to tell quite what will happen. But what we can be sure of is that it will be deeply thought through, and that it will be energetic, focused and disciplined."

Robert Jobson agrees. Catherine's role in her husband's reign will be the linchpin, restoring the credibility he feels Andrew Mounbatten-Windsor and Prince Harry have destroyed.

"She's a little bit of an enigma and even now is like the glue in this monarchy," Jobson says. "She understands what a mortgage is, she went to work on a bus. Her children have never experienced that, and her husband, despite wanting to be ordinary, was born to be king. That grounding that she has is hugely important."