SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Now Kate's aide finds her own Prince Charming: Duchess's private assistant gets engaged to Royal photographer

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With more than five years of marriage and two young children, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are the model of domestic contentment — but their household is a hotbed of passion.

I hear that Kate’s highly influential personal assistant Natasha Archer has become engaged to royal snapper Chris Jackson, who has been on private photoshoots with her and Prince William.

Confirming the engagement, Chris says: ‘I’m definitely punching above my weight.’ He has been courting pulchritudinous Tash since last year and adds of his proposal: ‘Apparently, it was a long time coming.’

Duchess of Cambridge's personal assistant Natasha Archer has become engaged to royal snapper Chris Jackson (both pictured)

The happy pair posed for a picture in which Natasha, 28, shows off her sparkler (above right).

Describing Tash as just Kate’s PA, however, seriously underestimates her importance in the Royal Household. For not only does she deal with the Duchess’s diary, she also acts as her unofficial dresser and stylist.

Privately educated Natasha was first identified as one of Kate’s team of image-makers when, following Prince George’s birth, she was seen carrying a suitcase and baby car seat into the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, alongside the Duchess’s hairdresser, Amanda Cook Tucker.

Tash is rumoured to have encouraged Kate to show more leg and ditch her beloved wedges in favour of high heels, as well as wear more High Street outfits. 

News of the engagement has lifted staff at Kensington Palace, where in July a love triangle ended with the departure of one of Kate’s most senior aides. 

It was announced that month that Nick Loughran, media adviser to Kate as well as to Princes William and Harry, was to leave his position to take up a new job in public relations.

Natasha (pictured, with her fiance and on a Royal trip to India) does not only deal with the Duchess’s diary, she also acts as her unofficial dresser and stylist

The news came three months after I disclosed that Loughran had dumped Kate’s private secretary, Rebecca Deacon, and begun courting Clara Madden, a blonde bombshell who works as Prince Harry’s assistant.

Clara previously worked for William and Kate, who made a point of meeting her parents when they visited her native New Zealand in 2014. Her mother Robyn revealed: ‘William said to me Clara is the star of the office.’

At the time, a pal of Loughran insisted his departure was not connected to his love life.

I'm ready to meet a new man, says Jilly Cooper 

Jilly Cooper, who lost husband Leo in 2013, said she is ready for a new man in her life

Jilly Cooper — who launches her latest bonkbuster, Mount!, with a glittering party at the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge tomorrow — reveals that she would love to find romance again.

The 79-year-old author, who lost her beloved husband, publisher Leo, in 2013, says she’s ready for a new man in her life.

But any suitor would have to be able-bodied, unlike Leo, for whom Jilly became the main carer in his later years.

‘I’m such a romantic,’ she says of a potential relationship. ‘It would be lovely, but I don’t think anyone would put up with me. It would be nice to have someone to go to the cinema and on jaunts with.’

However, she adds: ‘I don’t really want to be a carer again. That sounds awful and selfish, but I know how tiring it is. I realise now how lucky I was to have married Leo. He was so funny and confident.

‘I like incredibly strong men — they’re so sexy. It was lovely to go to a party with him. I felt so safe.’

Their long marriage survived revelations in the Nineties that Leo had a six-year affair with publishing assistant Sarah Johnson.

As QUEEN Victoria on ITV, Jenna Coleman has her pick of palaces — but, in real life, she’s too busy to put down roots. 

The 30-year-old has revealed she’s put her wardrobe into storage because she spends so long on location. ‘I’ve been living out of three suitcases since last year,’ wails the Lancastrian. ‘It’s forcing me to be more creative.’ Perhaps her admirer, Prince Harry, could offer her a roost at Kensington Palace?

 IT’S fair to say that Kylie Minogue’s fiance, actor Joshua Sasse, 28, is infatuated. Of being in love with the 48-year-old singer, he gushes: ‘It’s magic, it’s excitement, joy and sex. It’s feeling like you’re alive. For me, it’s that person who makes me feel like I am alive every day.’ Pass the sick bag.

Ouch! Ed Balls waltzes into a door 

Former Labour minister Ed Balls admitted that watching his clumsy first appearance on Strictly Come Dancing was ‘traumatising’ — but the ballroom is not the only place his poor footwork is causing him pain.

Yesterday, former Labour minister Ed Balls walked into a glass door at the Guardian newspaper’s office in London - leaving him with a nasty gash above his eye

Yesterday, the 49-year-old husband of MP Yvette Cooper walked into a glass door at the Guardian newspaper’s office in London, leaving him with a rather nasty gash above his right eye.

‘I look like I’ve done a few rounds in a boxing ring,’ he says. ‘What I need right now is one of the brilliant Strictly make-up artists to do a bit of cover-up.’