The Queen didn’t meet Kate Middleton for FIVE years after she started dating Prince William as she wanted to be sure it was serious

THE Queen and Kate Middleton didn’t meet for five years after she started dating Prince William, as the monarch wanted to make sure it was a serious relationship.

While The Duchess of Cambridge is now an integral member of The Firm and a senior royal, she didn’t meet the Queen until 2008, five years after she and Prince William got together in 2003.

Meeting the family is a big step in any relationship, but The Queen didn’t want to waste time meeting her grandsons’ short-term girlfriends.

Kate and Prince William met at university in St Andrews in 2001, but the pair didn’t start dating until two years later – soon after the 37-year-old modelled the now-infamous sheer dress.

When the pair first met The Duchess had a boyfriend, and Prince William, also 37, was single, with a reputation as a ladies man.

So Kate had to wait for half a decade to prove she was worthy of meeting the monarch, and wasn’t just another one of Prince William’s casual girlfriends.

But the meeting between the Queen and the mum-of-three nearly never happened, after the Duke and Duchess briefly split up in 2007.

Dogged by the media, the couple decided to part ways and pursue their own interests.

But the split didn’t last long, and the couple were photographed together just a few months later.

Speaking about their break, the dad-of-three later said: “We were both very young […] we were both defining ourselves as such and being different characters.

“It was very much trying to find out way and we were growing up, it was just a bit of space – things worked out for the better.”

Kate and Prince William’s relationship got very serious after they rekindled their romance, and it was finally time to meet the Queen.

The Duchess eventually met Prince William’s grandma at the wedding of Peter and Autumn Philips’, on May 17 2008.

Two years later, Prince William finally got down on one knee with Princess Diana’s 18 carat sapphire and diamond engagement ring, while the pair were on safari.

Now an established senior royal, it’s thought Kate and the Queen get on well, with the 93-year-old guiding her granddaughter-in-law on her future role as queen.

She recently named the Duchess as a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian (GCVO), the highest honour she can give a woman, to celebrate her eight wedding anniversary to Prince William.

We recently revealed Kate has 'undergone an edgy makeover to try and appear more modern'.

In more Royal Family news, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry "want a big family" and the public can expect a "second pregnancy announcementnext year", a royal author has claimed.

And Kensington Palace is on the hunt for someone to organise Prince William and Kate Middleton's "complex" royal diaries.