Such is the inexorable rise of the Middletons that some of Prince William’s snootier acquaintances refer to the girls as the “wisteria sisters” because they’re “decorative, terribly fragrant and have a ferocious ability to climb”.

Was it always thus? It would appear so.

Word reaches me that even as a teenager at Marlborough College, Pippa made no secret of her desire for, as one chum put it, “power and money”.

A glance through the Sporting Life section of the school magazine finds an interview with the petite brunette in which the English graduate, who shared a flat with the sons of the Dukes of Roxburghe and Northumberland at Edinburgh University and now works as a PR for a luxury goods firm, admits her life philosophy: “It’s ‘altior pettimo’ – Latin for ‘I aim for the highest’.

"This motto will be the key to my success!”