When Kate Middleton Becomes Queen, Will Her Sister Pippa Middleton Get a Royal Title of Her Own?

Poignantly, the Princess of Wales chose to bring her younger sister to Wimbledon last month — which marked only her second public appearance of 2024

Kate Middleton’s younger sister Pippa Middleton has long been known to be one of the Princess of Wales’ closest confidantes, but could she one day have a royal title of her own?

Pippa burst onto the global scene in 2011, when she famously served as her sister’s maid of honor at Kate’s April 29 wedding to Prince William. As recently as last month, Pippa joined both her sister, Kate, and her niece, Princess Charlotte, at Wimbledon on July 14, marking Princess Kate’s second public appearance of 2024. (Her first was the month prior when she joined the rest of the royal family at June 15’s Trooping the Colour.)

As the Princess of Wales continues to receive treatment for cancer, Pippa, along with her parents Michael and Carole Middleton and their younger brother James, have been “the real anchors in her life,” royal biographer Katie Nicholl told Entertainment Tonight. “While you certainly don’t see them photographed together very often, they are very much there in the background,” she added. “They are absolutely fundamental.”

While Queen Camilla’s own sister Annabel Elliot isn’t one of her designated “companions” — the more modern term for “lady-in-waiting” adopted by the former Duchess of Cornwall when she became Queen, according to the BBC — Elliot did serve as one of the royal’s two ladies in attendance at her coronation alongside husband King Charles in May 2023.

When Kate becomes queen someday, will Pippa become one of Kate’s companions? It remains to be seen, but, according to Hello!, “it would be unprecedented for Pippa to receive a title simply because her sister is queen consort” — but, like Elliot, a role like a lady-in-attendance or companion could be in Pippa’s future.

“I think traditionally, we might expect Catherine to appoint her sister Pippa, because Catherine is so famously close to her family,” said royal historian Kate Williams on True Royalty TV’s The Royal Beat: Back in Time (per InStyle). “She doesn’t have companions because she’s so close to her mother and her sister. I think we might possibly expect that Pippa might be someone she might appoint.”

Of the possibility, Ailsa Anderson, a former communications secretary to Queen Elizabeth, said, “It’s actually quite nice to have somebody who you’ve known and trusted to be by your side in those big events because when you’ve always got to be on show.”

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Williams is confident that Princess Kate will one day have her own companions as Queen Camilla does because “the job of a monarch and a consort isn’t getting any smaller,” she said. “The letters, the correspondence, the emails are growing every day.” Williams added that “when Catherine becomes queen, the levels of tours, the levels of letters, the level of receptions, will still require this assistance. So I think she will have to appoint some ladies-in-waiting.”

When Queen Camilla modernized the traditional “ladies-in-waiting” concept to her companions back in 2022, she chose six women assistants that are “less regularly in attendance than the previous role required,” according to the BBC. The honorary positions involve helping Camilla at public events, but “unlike the ladies-in-waiting, this slimmed-down role will not involve correspondence or administration,” the outlet reported.

Queen Camilla’s companions are “a more occasional and informal position,” supporting her at official engagements and “not involved in replying to letters or day-to-day planning,” according to the BBC. “They don’t receive a salary, but their expenses will be covered.”

Even if offered the chance to be a companion to her older sister, it’s unclear if Pippa — who married James Matthews in 2017 and shares three children with him — would even accept the role: “Pippa has her own life — three children, and a busy life of her own,” Williams said. “It’s a fascinating question.”

Companion or not, there is a title Pippa will definitely inherit, according to Hello!, but it has nothing to do with Kate or the rest of the royal family. Pippa’s husband is reportedly set to inherit his father David Matthews’ title as Laird of Glen Affric — and, as such, Pippa will one day become Lady of Glen Affric.