Once again, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, has been objecting to her treatment in the media. This week, she complained to the BBC about an inaccuracy by Amol Rajan in his BBC podcast, Harry, Meghan and the Media. Her complaint was successful, and the BBC issued a clarification. She must be tired of fighting all these battles, though. So what should she do?

Well, I don’t know whether she’s looking to recruit a new adviser. And if she is, I doubt I would be her first-choice candidate. Not least because, when she was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey last year, the programme highlighted one of my own columns as an example of the appalling treatment to which this poor woman had been subjected by the wicked British press. (I’d suggested that some of her public remarks were a bit corny.)

Even if Meghan were willing to forgive me for this scandalous slur, however, I don’t suppose she’d be terribly impressed by the advice I had to offer her. Because I would tell her that the best way to handle the media is to follow the example set by a certain other public figure.

The Duchess of Cambridge.

On the whole, I suspect that this suggestion wouldn’t go down tremendously well. Which is a pity, because I genuinely do believe it would be good advice. The Duchess of Cambridge, after all, knows better than anyone how to handle a savage tabloid press.

Such a claim may sound improbable – certainly to Meghan’s supporters. In their eyes, the British tabloids are guilty of blatant double standards. Horrible to Meghan, while sucking up to Kate.

In reality, though, the tabloids haven’t always given the latter an easy ride. Far from it. We seem to have forgotten it now. But, back in the days when Kate was dating William, the tabloids used to monster her without mercy.

Routinely she was depicted as lazy, dull, frumpy, shallow and desperate. For years, they nicknamed her “Waity Katie” – because, in the words of the Daily Record in May 2008, she doesn’t do “anything much apart from hanging around while [William] decides whether or not to pop the question”. She “remains content to do next to nothing” with her life (Mail, May 2008) because she’s “notoriously workshy” (Mail, May 2009). According to one columnist (Sun, August 2008), “she is rapidly losing whatever public affection she once had by coming across as a rather idle and spoilt party girl”.

Some critics claimed to find Kate pathetically ingratiating. In February 2009, a writer in the Mail said that “dreary, misguided Waity Katie” had “committed high treason to the feminist cause”, because she regularly turned up to watch her boyfriend playing polo and, more shockingly still, would discuss the game with him afterwards. Meanwhile, a columnist for a Belfast newspaper lambasted her for accompanying her boyfriend when he went shooting (“The poor gel must be desperate”).

On top of that, Kate was pronounced guilty of social climbing. According to one report from 2007, she and her sister Pippa were known as “the Wisteria Sisters” because of their “ferocious ability to climb”. Supposedly they’d inherited this characteristic from their mother, Carole. The Evening Standard wondered whether “Mrs Meddleton” was “too pushy for the Royals”, while a columnist for a Scottish newspaper diagnosed “a severe case of the Mrs Bennets”.

Perhaps the most vicious comments, however, were reserved for Kate’s weight. In 2007, it was reported that “passersby were taken aback” by her “painfully thin appearance and bony, almost concave chest” (Mail, June 2007). In the month before her wedding in 2011, one tabloid columnist wrote a lengthy open letter to the bride-to-be, dedicated entirely to the subject of her figure. “Your normally healthy, lithe and athletic body […] has almost disappeared, along with your curves. Those legs are worryingly thin…”

I doubt many people remember much of this. But, looking back now, it seems startling. How on earth did she get through it?

Quite simply, she followed the example set by the Queen. She refused to lower herself to her critics’ level, and instead remembered the Royal family’s great mantra: Never complain, never explain.

Her Majesty, after all, did not respond to her “annus horribilis” of 1992 by leaping on to the nearest chat show sofa and blaming the tabloids for revealing what certain members of her family had been up to. Instead, she did what she has always done: rise above it all. And that’s what Kate did, too. It took strength. But it was also wise.

Back in 2009, a tabloid columnist complained that “Waity Katie” never expressed any opinions in public. Perhaps, sniffed the columnist, “she hasn’t got any”.

Or perhaps she has – but is far too smart to reveal them.

You can read Michael Deacon’s column every Wednesday. Click here to read last week’s edition