It was the summer of 2001, William's final holiday before he started St Andrews, when Arabella Musgrave first caught his eye. She was the eighteen-year-old daughter of Major Nicholas Musgrave, who managed the Cirencester Park Polo Club, and they had known each other since they were little. Although not t.i.tled aristocracy, Arabella was a close friend of Guy Pelly's and Hugh Van Cutsem and part of the Glosse Posse. As she walked through the house party at the Van Cutsems' family home, William did a double-take. Arabella had blossomed into a gorgeous-looking girl, and as she sashayed past him, her perfume lingering in the air, he wondered why he hadn't noticed her properly until now. William knew he would make a move on her by the end of the night. They danced and drank into the early hours, and when Arabella said her goodnights, the prince quietly slipped out the room to follow her upstairs. It was the beginning of a pa.s.sionate romance and the two spent as much time together that summer as possible.

They would dine at the Tunnel House Inn in Coates close to Highgrove, where collages of the regulars cover the old brick walls. With its famous bra.s.s fox door knocker and bright-pink-painted entrance hall, it was one of their favourite haunts. Charles was aware of the relationship and had given it his blessing. While she was not the debutante Charles had hoped William would romance, he suspected the relationship would soon fizzle out and instructed William's protection officers to give the couple plenty of leeway. Major Nicholas, however, took a firmer stance, and when he caught Arabella sitting on William's knee while the prince kissed her neck at a party at the polo club, he had a quiet word. Although he was fond of William such displays of affection, he insisted, were not for public consumption By the time William left for St Andrews in September he and Arabella had already made the mutual decision to end their relationship. William would be meeting new people at university and Arabella could not expect him to wait for her. The problem was that William became bored in Scotland. He missed his friends in Gloucestershire and going to his favourite nightclubs in London. The advantage of St Andrews being so small was that he was well protected, but the town could be claustrophobic. He also missed Arabella, and on Friday nights when he began his journey home to Highgrove he was comforted by the fact that she would be waiting for him.

Charles knew he had a crisis on his hands when William returned home at Christmas and announced he did not want to go back to university for his second semester. He complained he was not enjoying the course and St Andrews was too far away. Charles listened patiently. He knew William could be temperamental and the situation was delicate. Of course William could leave if he was thoroughly miserable, but give it another term, he suggested. As he often did in a crisis, Charles consulted his private secretary Sir Stephen Lamport and press adviser Mark Bolland as well as William's former housemaster at Eton Dr Andrew Gailey who agreed that they would do everything to persuade the prince to stay. The main problem appeared to be that, apart from being homesick, William had no interest in his course and was finding the workload challenging. Despite growing up in palaces where Rembrandts, Vermeers, Ca.n.a.lettos and Van Dycks lined the walls, he had not enjoyed studying baroque and rococo art during his first term. 'It was really no different from what many first-year students go through,' Mark Bolland recalled. 'We approached the whole thing as a wobble which was entirely normal.'

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were kept abreast of the situation. 'He needs to knuckle down and not wimp out,' was Philip's typically blunt response. It could have been disastrous for the monarchy if William had pulled out. The Royal Family enjoyed close ties with Scotland and did not want to alienate the Scots. They were also reminded of the criticism that Prince Edward had faced when he had left the Royal Marines in the spring of 1987. After some frank discussions with William's deans, a deal was struck.

'It would have been a PR disaster for St Andrews if he had left after one term, and we worked very hard to keep him,' said Andrew Neil.

We gave him pastoral care, and when he suggested majoring in geography we made sure there were no roadblocks. The course structure at St Andrews is such that you can actually change the focus of your degree in your first year, and by the time William came back for the second semester he had settled in. He made a lot of friends and, having met him quite a few times, I think he was happy in the town. William was protected by the students who formed a circle around him and looked out for him. He got the blues, which happens. We have a lot of public-school boys and girls who get up here, and by November, when the weather gets grey and cold, wish they were back home. William was a long way from home and he wasn't happy.

'I don't think I was homesick; I was more daunted,' William later admitted. 'My father was very understanding about it and realised I had the same problem as he probably had. We chatted a lot and in the end we both realised I definitely realised that I had to come back.' Returning to St Andrews, he was much happier with his switch to geography.

However, the following Easter his beloved great-grandmother pa.s.sed away at the age of 101. William, Harry and Charles were two days into a holiday in Klosters when they received the sad news, and they immediately flew to RAF Northolt in west London. Charles was inconsolable, and this time it was William and Harry who needed to be strong. The Queen, whose sister Margaret had died seven weeks earlier, was also said to be greatly saddened. It was the year of her golden jubilee, but it seemed she had little to celebrate. The sight of William and Harry walking behind their great-grandmother's coffin from Westminster Abbey brought other tragic memories flooding back.

William wasn't always a model student. Dr Declan Quigley recalled the prince once fell asleep during one of his anthropology lectures.

I remember William was asleep or possibly recovering from a hangover when I was giving what I thought was my most interesting lecture on kingship. There were 250-odd students in the lecture so he probably thought I hadn't noticed. Maybe he just had his head in his hands because he was thinking, Oh G.o.d, is that what I have to go through? Perhaps he just didn't want to hear what his destiny had in store for him? My lectures were on ritual. Of course some of the students perfectly understood the comedy of a lecturer talking about the fundamental principles of kingship with the future king present, and some of them thought it quite funny. One mature student came up to me and said, a little shocked, 'You do realise that Prince William attends these lectures.' Of course I knew. I didn't change anything because William was there. I found it quite amusing myself, and if anything tended to play up the comic elements more. I sometimes wish William had had the wit to come up and ask me questions since I was really pa.s.sionate about the subject in those days, and what I was saying really did have relevance for him.

It was ironic that William was attending lectures on the very subject he struggled to come to terms with. As a very modern royal, his views about the monarchy were at odds with Dr Quigley's, who believed that the king must not be ordinary but extraordinary. 'The really crucial thing about kingship is that a king or queen must be initiated through a ritual to transform him or her from their ordinary status into something quite extraordinary,' explained Quigley, who has written a book called The Character of Kingship The Character of Kingship. 'All these would-be modernisers of the royal family have got it completely wrong. The more like one of us the king becomes, the less there is any reason for having a king. A king is a symbol, not a person.' Perhaps it was exactly what William didn't want to hear, or maybe he was just so bored he switched off. Either way he wanted to enjoy St Andrews and revel in four years of being ordinary, not extraordinary.

It was the night of the annual Don't Walk charity fashion show on 27 March 2002 during William's second semester, when the moment of realisation suddenly hit him. As Kate shimmied down the catwalk at the five-star St Andrews Bay Hotel William turned to Fergus. 'Wow, Fergus,' he whispered. 'Kate's hot!' He had paid 200 for his front-row ticket, and when Kate appeared in black underwear and a see-through dress William barely knew where to look. 'Kate looked amazing,' recalled one of the models. 'Her hair was slightly frizzy and with her wasp-like waist and washboard stomach she stole the show. She always had a complex about her legs, which she complained were too short, but she was great on the catwalk, and everyone including William knew it.'

At a party at 14 Hope Street after the fashion show William decided to make his move. As the music throbbed and beautiful young things sat sipping home-made c.o.c.ktails on the winding staircase of the student house, William and Kate were huddled in a quiet corner deep in conversation. As they clinked their gla.s.ses to toast Kate's success, William leaned in to kiss her. It was Kate who pulled away, momentarily stunned that he had been so bold in a room full of strangers. At the time she was dating Rupert Finch, a fourth-year student, but William didn't seem to care. 'It was clear to us that William was smitten with Kate,' remembered one of their friends who was at the party and witnessed the moment. 'He actually told her she was a knockout that night, which caused her to blush. There was definitely chemistry between them and Kate had really made an impression on William. She played it very cool and at one point when William seemed to lean in to kiss her, she pulled away. She didn't want to give off the wrong impression or make it too easy for Will.'

It was a rebuff, but Kate had wavered. The attraction was evidently mutual. Kate had been hugely relieved when William returned to St Andrews for the second semester of his first year. They had kept in touch over the Christmas break and she had encouraged him to give St Andrews a second chance. She had been homesick too and had become, quite unexpectedly, dependent on William's friendship. She was completely unaffected by the fact that he was a prince; to her he was just William, which was one of the reasons he was always so comfortable with her.

Chapter 10.

Kate Middleton, princess-in-waiting.

He's lucky to be going out with me.Kate Middleton on dating Prince William After her impressive debut on the catwalk, things would never be quite the same between William and Kate. William had insisted in an interview on his twenty-first birthday that he was single, but the truth was he had fallen for his pretty friend. One problem was Kate's relationship with Rupert Finch. It wasn't terribly serious, but Kate, as she would show many times over in the following years, was nothing if not loyal, and William's t.i.tle was not going to change that. But William was giving off mixed signals, including the romance with Carley, who Kate could not stand. In later years Kate would be nicknamed 'Waity Katie' by the British press as she waited patiently for her prince to propose, but back then in the beginning it was William who had to do the waiting, and the irony of the role reversal has never been lost on Kate.

By the start of his second year, in September 2002, William was living in a flat at 13a Hope Street, a smart house in the centre of the town. One of his conditions for staying was that he would be allowed to move out of halls after his first year, and share an apartment with his friends. It was a luxury no prince before him had enjoyed and exactly the normality that William craved. Of course there were the necessary security issues to consider: the property was fitted with bulletproof windows, a bomb-proof front door and a state-of-the art laser security system that came with a thick instruction manual. The floor-to-ceiling windows were also protected with reinforced full-length pine shutters in keeping with the rest of the street. William's room, which was situated between the galley kitchen and the open-plan living and dining room on the first floor, was the biggest and looked onto an overgrown private garden and the back of the student union building on Market Street.

He had decided to move in with Kate, Fergus and Olivia Bleasdale, a former pupil at Wes...o...b..rt School in Gloucestershire who William knew through one of his best friends, Natasha Rufus Isaacs, daughter of the Marquess of Reading. They each paid 100 a week rent for the two storey top-floor flat and shared the cleaning. With its high ceilings and open-plan living area it was perfect for entertaining. 'They did throw dinner parties and took it in turns to go shopping for groceries,' one of their friends recalled. 'William was part of the dinner-party brigade and being seen in Tesco was all part of it. It was a bit of a meeting place for the great and the good. Fergus would get dressed up to the nines and only ever wore different shades of white. He was always immaculately turned out and William was always with him, so it was not uncommon for girls to stake out Tesco in the hope of seeing the pair of them.' Indeed it was while searching for an exotic fruit for dessert that William b.u.mped into his friend, fellow geography student Bryony Daniels. When they were photographed walking in the town together they were immediately linked, but there was nothing going on between them. By now William had decided the only St Andrews girl he wanted was Kate.

William and Kate were determined to keep their fledgling romance quiet, and behind the closed doors of 13a Hope Street they could. Their bedrooms were on separate landings, but by this stage it was nothing more than pretence. William was enjoying a freedom no royal before him had ever had and it signalled how much the royal family had modernised. William and Kate had fallen in love and were enjoying a conventional university romance, albeit one involving elaborate cover-ups and decoys. In a bid to keep their relationship below the radar for as long as possible, they would leave the house at different times, arrive at dinner parties separately and made a pact never to hold hands in public.

In their own apartment they were like any other couple in love. During the cold winter months they would spend their evenings watching DVDs and ordering in pizzas or Indian takeaways from the Balaka, a Bangladeshi restaurant at the end of their road. Sometimes they would venture to the West Port bar on South Street, where Kate loved the decor whitewashed walls with modern chrome fireplaces and extravagant vintage chandeliers. The bar sponsored a local rugby team called the Rat Pack, which William sometimes played for. The couple were also fans of Ma Belle's, a popular student haunt beneath the Golf Hotel on the Scores, which served a cheap and decent brunch including a salmon teriyaki that Kate claimed was the best cure for a hangover. At night the orange-painted restaurant metamorphosed into a fashionable drinking venue where c.o.c.ktails were just five pounds. For dancing the couple would visit the Lizard, a garish lime-green-and-purple-painted subterranean late-night bar beneath the Oak Rooms on North Street.

Although she had spent much of the first year with the Sally's boys, by the second year Kate had her own social set. She co-founded the Lumsden Club, a women-only rival to the all-male Kate Kennedy Club, and spent much of her spare time planning summer drinks parties to raise money for various charities with her friend Katherine Munsey, who lived several doors away in Hope Street. She was also friendly with Bryony Gordon and Lady Virginia Fraser, the daughter of Lord Strathalmond, who knew Kate from her former school, Downe House. Leonora Gummer, daughter of Tory MP John Gummer, was also part of their well-heeled clique, along with Sandrine Janet, a pretty French student who was dating William and Kate's flatmate Fergus.

While it was the boys' job to shop at Tesco, the girls prepared the weekly dinner parties. 'Katherine Munsey would go to extreme efforts, and had the silver brought up from London when she was throwing a really big event,' recalled a member of their inner circle. 'She was very stylish and so were her dinner parties, which would consist of courses and courses. They would take it in turn to have parties at each other's houses, which always entailed lots of drinking and lots of fun.' When dinner was over and the claret had switched to port or Jack Daniel's, a bottle of which William would always bring, the friends would enjoy playing drinking games. Their favorite was I've Never, which entails one player admitting to the others something she or he has never done and then asking the others if they have. If anyone has done the deed in question they must take a drink. One member of the group recalled, William and Kate loved the game, but it went a bit wrong on the one occasion Carley came for dinner. She and William were still friends and Carley lived across the road in Howard Place in her third year. She could literally wave to William from her sitting room, where she would sit knitting by the window, which rather grated on Kate. When it was Carley's turn to play she announced, 'I've never dated two people in this room,' knowing full well that William was the only one who had because Kate was sitting next to him. He shot Carley a thunderous look and said under his breath, 'I can't believe you just said that,' before drinking his shot. Kate didn't speak to Carley much after that but we were in shock. We knew they were together but it was the first time William confirmed his and Kate's relationship in public.

By the end of their second year the relationship was clearly a close one. When William attended Kate's belated twenty-first birthday party in June 2003 at her family home in Bucklebury, Berkshire, the glance she threw him across the room when he walked into the 1920s-themed party was beyond platonic. Such was the speculation about their relationship that Kate's father Michael was approached by a reporter on the doorstep of the Middletons' home. 'We are very amused at the thought of being in-laws to Prince William, but I don't think it is going to happen,' he said when asked about their alleged courtship. But then at William's twenty-first birthday party at Windsor Castle later that month it seemed as though Kate was barely registering on William's radar; he seemed preoccupied with a very pretty girl called Jecca Craig.

William had first met Jecca, daughter of British conservationist Ian Craig and his wife Jane, in 1998 in Kenya during his school holidays. He had fallen in love with Africa, and returned during his gap year to spend several weeks learning about conservation at the Craigs' 55,000-acre game reserve situated in the beautiful Lewa Downs in the foothills of Mount Kenya. William had adored every minute of it and years later would get involve with the Tusk Trust, a conservation charity which finances some of Lewa's activities and of which William is now patron. Mr Craig recalled, 'William just loves Africa, that's clear. He did everything from rhino-spotting to anti-poaching patrols to checking fences. He's a great boy.' At the end of the day he and Jecca would eat al fresco and talk of Africa. It was not long before rumours were circulating among their friends that something was going on. William had apparently had a secret crush on Jecca since the first time he met her. She was beautiful, with long blond hair, deep-blue eyes and legs like a gazelle. But when it was reported that the two had staged a mock engagement ceremony to pledge their love to one another before William returned to England, the prince instructed his aides to deny this had happened.

It was a rare move usually the Palace never comments on the princes' private lives but on this occasion William wanted the story refuted. 'There's been a lot of speculation about every single girl I'm with, and it actually does quite irritate me after a while, more so because it's a complete pain for the girls,' he said. The tale had rattled him and embarra.s.sed Jecca, who at the time was dating Edinburgh University undergraduate Henry Ropner, a former Etonian and a friend of William. The denial did little to quash the rumours of a romance however, and as Kate raised her champagne flute to toast the birthday prince at the aptly themed Out of Africa celebration at Windsor Castle, it was Jecca who had pride of place next to William at the head table.

By the end of the summer, however, the relationship seemed back on track and was an open secret at St Andrews, and William and Kate were desperate for some privacy. While Fergus decided to stay on at 13a Hope Street they decided to move out to Balgove House on Strathtyrum, a sprawling private estate a quarter of a mile outside the town centre owned by a wealthy landowner called Henry Cheape, a distant cousin of the prince and close friend of the royals. The impressive four-bedroom cottage was a perfect sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the town, and with a long gravel drive framed by hedgerows leading from the busy main road up to the house it was far more private than Hope Street. Unmarked police cars patrolled the estate and William's protection officers lived in the a.s.sorted outhouses. As with all his residences, the cottage had been made secure for the prince complete with bomb-proof doors and windows. To the right of the hallway was a small lounge with an open fireplace and to the left a large kitchen-diner with a black and white chequered floor where William, Kate and their new housemate Oli Baker spent most of their time. They intended to entertain frequently: William installed a champagne fridge as soon as they moved in, while Kate set about dressing the windows with pretty red and white gingham curtains. As well as the grounds, where they enjoyed long romantic walks, the couple had the privacy of two acres of wild gra.s.sland hidden behind a six-foot stone wall. William joked that it was like a miniature Highgrove, and with its crab-apple trees, blooming rhododendrons and patches of wild poppies it was an impressive subst.i.tute. When it was warm enough, they would pack a picnic hamper and spend pleasant afternoons stretched out on a blanket sharing a bottle of chilled white wine, an occasional pheasant their only company. They were blissful days, made all the more romantic by the fact that virtually no one knew about their romance. But the secret would soon be out.

Against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains William put his arm around Kate. Wrapped up against the cold mountain air in their salopettes and ski jackets, they waited in line for a ski lift. As the T-bar arrived, William helped Kate on and they glided up the steep mountain, ski poles in their hands. The shot of William gazing lovingly at Kate that was published in the Sun Sun newspaper on 1 April 2004 was no April Fool. The rumours, which had been around for months, were confirmed: William and Kate were definitely more than just friends. 'If I fancy a girl and she fancies me back, which is rare, I ask her out. But at the same time I don't want to put them in an awkward situation, because a lot of people don't understand what comes with knowing me, for one and secondly, if they were my girlfriend, the excitement it would probably cause,' William had remarked in that twenty-first-birthday interview. He was right about the excitement. He had chosen to go to Klosters, where the royal family are photographed every year, and he had made no attempt to disguise his affection for Kate. They were with a group of friends that included Tiggy Legge-Bourke's brother Harry, Guy Pelly and William Van Cutsem and his girlfriend Katie James. The candid shots of them on the slopes had been taken by the world-famous paparrazo Jason Fraser, who had seven years earlier taken photographs of William's mother in the arms of Dodi Al Fayed aboard the newspaper on 1 April 2004 was no April Fool. The rumours, which had been around for months, were confirmed: William and Kate were definitely more than just friends. 'If I fancy a girl and she fancies me back, which is rare, I ask her out. But at the same time I don't want to put them in an awkward situation, because a lot of people don't understand what comes with knowing me, for one and secondly, if they were my girlfriend, the excitement it would probably cause,' William had remarked in that twenty-first-birthday interview. He was right about the excitement. He had chosen to go to Klosters, where the royal family are photographed every year, and he had made no attempt to disguise his affection for Kate. They were with a group of friends that included Tiggy Legge-Bourke's brother Harry, Guy Pelly and William Van Cutsem and his girlfriend Katie James. The candid shots of them on the slopes had been taken by the world-famous paparrazo Jason Fraser, who had seven years earlier taken photographs of William's mother in the arms of Dodi Al Fayed aboard the Jonikal Jonikal. The Palace was furious and accused the Sun Sun of breaching the embargo which protected Prince William while he was at university. But the paper had decided that this was a scoop just too good to turn down. F of breaching the embargo which protected Prince William while he was at university. But the paper had decided that this was a scoop just too good to turn down. FINALLY ... W ... WILLS G GETS A A G GIRL was the headline. The truth was he had had this girl for many months. Suddenly the floodgates opened and the world wanted to know everything about this shy, pretty and una.s.suming girl. was the headline. The truth was he had had this girl for many months. Suddenly the floodgates opened and the world wanted to know everything about this shy, pretty and una.s.suming girl.

Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born on 9 January 1982 at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. The first child of Michael and Carole Middleton, she grew up with her younger sister Philippa, known as Pippa, and their brother James at the family's modest home in Bradfield Southend. In her only ever interview to date Kate recalled how she used to love dressing up as a clown in giant dungarees and play musical statues with her siblings because she has 'always been a keen dancer'. Birthdays were always an occasion in the Middleton household and Kate remembered 'an amazing white rabbit marshmallow cake that Mummy made when I was seven'. Kate's mother Carole Goldsmith came from a working-cla.s.s background and traced her ancestry back to the coal-mining villages of County Durham, but she was determined to get on and became a stewardess for British Airways in the 1970s. It was while working for the airline that she met Michael Middleton, a flight dispatcher from a distinctly middle-cla.s.s background, and they were married in 1980, a year before Charles married Diana. While Carole and Michael had been educated at comprehensives, they could afford to send all three of their children to private schools, having set up a lucrative mail order company called Party Pieces. The business, which grew into a successful online company, also enabled them to move into an impressive 1 million home just a few miles away in the village of Chapel Row, near Bucklebury in Berkshire. There was even enough money for a pied-a-terre in London's exclusive Chelsea.

Kate attended St Andrew's Preparatory School in Pangbourne, just four miles from their home. It was here that she showed natural talent on the sports pitch and a flair for acting. Like William she appeared in school plays, including a production of My Fair Lady My Fair Lady in which she played the lead role of Eliza Doolittle when she was ten. She then became a boarder at Downe House, an exclusive Roman Catholic all-girls boarding school in Berkshire, but was teased for taking her studies too seriously. While her peers were interested in fashion and boys, the flat-chested gangly Kate was more interested in studying and sport. Her parents decided after two miserable terms that their gifted fourteen-year-old daughter would be better suited to Marlborough College. in which she played the lead role of Eliza Doolittle when she was ten. She then became a boarder at Downe House, an exclusive Roman Catholic all-girls boarding school in Berkshire, but was teased for taking her studies too seriously. While her peers were interested in fashion and boys, the flat-chested gangly Kate was more interested in studying and sport. Her parents decided after two miserable terms that their gifted fourteen-year-old daughter would be better suited to Marlborough College.

The 28,000-a-year private school has an excellent track record for sports, and Kate, who was known as Catherine to her contemporaries, thrived in her new surroundings. A boarder at Elmhurst House, she was a popular pupil, and when her sister and brother joined the school, she gained even more confidence. She had yet to grow into the beauty that was voted the prettiest girl at St Salvator's, but her easy-going nature ensured she had plenty of friends. 'Kate was nicknamed "Catherine Middleb.u.m", and was always popular because she had no side to her at all,' recalled her cla.s.smate Gemma Williamson.

She was serious, studious and shy, and while her dorm-mates illicitly experimented with vodka and cigarettes, Kate sensibly refused, although she would gamely agree to keep watch. Her best friend and room-mate Jessica Hay remembered Kate as a family girl with strong morals: 'She didn't get involved in any drinking or smoking but was very sporty instead and very family-orientated.' She pa.s.sed eleven GCSEs and three A levels, gaining A grades in maths and art and a B in English. She also captained the tennis team and played netball and hockey for the school. But, unlike her friends, she had no interest in boys. 'We would sit around talking about all the boys at school we fancied, but Catherine would always say, "I don't like any of them. They're all a bit rough,"' said Jessica, who was dating William's friend Nicholas Knatchbull at the time. 'Then she would joke, "There's no one quite like William." She had a picture of him on her wall ... She always used to say, "I bet he's really kind. You can tell just by looking at him."'

When she finished her A levels, Kate was allowed to take a gap year, part of which she spent in Florence. For three months during the autumn of 2000 she lived with four girlfriends in a top-floor flat above a delicatessen in the city centre, where she coupled her pa.s.sion for art with learning Italian at the British Inst.i.tute. She would spend hours wandering around Florence's historic cobbled streets and capturing the beauty of the imposing cathedral on camera. Photography was a hobby she loved and, in later years one she would toy with turning into a profession. During those sunny art-filled days in Florence she soaked up the city and its treasures, and, always something of a wallflower at school, she blossomed. While she had never counted herself as pretty, those around her often made a point of commenting on her natural beauty, especially her mother. 'Kate morphed into something of a beauty that holiday, and we all saw it,' remembers a friend. 'Her parents came over to Florence for a long weekend. While her father Michael was quiet, Carole was very gregarious and would not stop telling Kate how beautiful she had become. She had rosebud lips and this amazing mane of hair, and she was gorgeous. When we were at dinner Carole would exclaim to the waiters, "Look at my English rose. Isn't she so beautiful?" Kate would be cringing in the corner, but she knew it was true.'

This was typical of mother and daughter. While Kate could be painfully shy, her mother was confident and proud, and always believed her daughter was destined for great things. She had high hopes for all three of her children. Kate's brother quit Edinburgh University after the first year to get involved with the family business, while Pippa continued her degree in English at the same university. She dated J J Jardine Patterson, a scion of the Hong Kong banking family, and counted Ted Innes-Kerr, son of the Duke of Roxburghe, and George Percy, son of the Duke of Northumberland, as close friends. When Kate became friendly with William, Carole by all accounts was delighted. As far as she was concerned, both her daughters had reached the pinnacle of social success. The press picked up on this and nicknamed Pippa and Kate the 'wisteria sisters' because of their 'ferocious ability to climb the social ladder'. 'Carole has always wanted the best for her children,' recalled a family friend.

She is incredibly close to Kate and largely misinterpreted. It upsets Kate a lot when people say her mother is pushy. Carole is a go-getter who knows what she wants and usually gets it. Yes, she likes the fine things in life, but she and Michael have worked hard to get them. She is a lot of fun, and often sends herself up. When they dine in Mustique and she hears a plane coming in to land, she puts on her best air hostess voice and announces the flight name and landing time it's very funny. Michael is a man of fewer words, but you can tell he adores his family. He always sits at the head of the table, and you can see his delight as he listens to his children chat about their recent adventures.

While some at the Palace snootily pontificated that Kate was not blue-blooded enough for the prince, she had other qualities that were far more important to William. She was polite to the photographers who now pursued her and quickly adopted the royal rule of never speaking out. She also insisted that her family never discussed her relationship with William. As Princess Diana's former private secretary Patrick Jephson noted, 'We know very little about her and probably never will, providing they do their job right. Historically a degree of mystery about royalty has been an advantage; we project onto them what we want.' According to one of her friends at St Andrews, she remained level-headed and kept her feet on the ground during the early months of their courtship. 'She never got above her station, and even though she had secured the most sought-after boy at St Andrews she never gloated. She was actually quite insecure about her looks and never considered herself pretty, she was very sweet and very shy.'

Like Diana, Kate quickly had to adapt to being in the spotlight, but her transition into royal life was much smoother. She enjoyed being at Highgrove, Balmoral and Sandringham, where she would accompany William on shoots during the grouse and pheasant seasons. She had practised with William on the Strathtyrum estate, where they were allowed to shoot birds for food as part of their rental agreement. She and William cherished their weekends on the Balmoral estate. Like Charles, who had been given the use of Wood Farm at Sandringham while he was at Cambridge, the Queen allowed William to use a cottage called Tam-na-Ghar at Balmoral as a getaway. Tucked away in the remote countryside, the 120-year-old cottage, which is surrounded by rolling hills and wild heather as far as the eye can see, underwent a 150,000 renovation complete with a bath tub big enough for two before William and Harry were each given a set of keys.

After their last cla.s.s on Friday William and Kate would speed up to Balmoral from St Andrews in William's black Volkswagon Golf followed by his protection officers. It was here that he really got to know the girl who many believe will one day become his wife and with that, the queen of the United Kingdom. Like William, Kate loved walking across the moors and strolling by the River Dee. In the evenings they would cook a meal, share a bottle of red wine and keep warm in front of a roaring log fire. Sometimes they were joined by friends from St Andrews, and often Pippa and James, whose trophy stag heads line the walls of the Middleton family house, would be invited for a weekend's shoot, when they would compete as to who could bag the most birds.

It was the summer of 2004 when William and Kate's love affair underwent its first serious test. With one year to complete before they graduated, the twenty-two-year-old prince needed some s.p.a.ce. Until now they had chosen not to discuss what would happen after St Andrews, but with their finals looming, it was an issue that needed addressing.

William decided that a holiday would provide him with some thinking time and planned a boys-only sailing trip to Greece as soon as they broke up for the summer holidays. Despite being an accomplished sailor, Kate was not invited. Instead, William would go with Guy Pelly and some other friends. Kate had had a turbulent relationship with Guy and considered him immature and potentially troublesome. It was Guy who used to buy William p.o.r.n magazines when they were teenagers, and she had heard all about their drink-fuelled weekends at Highgrove. There was also a rumour among their friends that William and Guy had covered one of their girlfriends in chocolate ice cream which they then licked off after a night of heavy drinking at Club H, and the occasion when Guy challenged William to a midnight skinny dip at their friend James Tollemache's twenty-first birthday party at Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. They had both been drinking heavily but that didn't stop them from stripping down to their boxer shorts, diving in and swimming a lap of the murky moat that surrounds the Tollemache's country estate where the Queen is a regular guest. At one point William had relieved him -self in a field while Harry, who was seventeen at the time, spent most of the night on the dance floor of the Moulin Rouge themed party with a can of beer in each hand according to one guest.

It seemed wherever there was trouble, Guy was not far behind and Kate was wary of him. She was not surprised when she found out that Guy had arranged the yacht with an all-female crew, but she was annoyed. So she packed her bags and headed home to Berkshire to spend the summer with her family. It wasn't so much the fact that William wanted a break; Kate was beginning to question William's commitment to their relationship, and she also had her own creeping doubts about their future after St Andrews.

A number of things had caused her to question William's commitment, although she had not raised them with him yet. One was William's friendship with an American heiress called Anna Sloan, whom William had met through mutual friends at Edinburgh University, where Anna was studying. Anna had lost her father, businessman George Sloan, in a tragic shooting accident on the family's 360-acre estate in Nashville, and she and William had bonded over the loss of their parents. When Anna invited William and a group of friends to Texas for a holiday before he went to Greece, it hurt Kate deeply. She suspected William might have feelings for the twenty-two-year-old heiress. However, Anna was not in the least romantically interested in William, and the friendship was never anything more than just that.

And then there was William's budding friendship with another stunning heiress, Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. The younger sister of William and Harry's polo-playing friend Jacobi, the impossibly named but exquisite-looking socialite had caught William's attention. While Kate was girl-next-door pretty, Isabella boasted cover-girl looks, a t.i.tle and a stately pile to boot. That summer William visited the Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe family home in Chelsea to see her. Isabella, daughter of banking heiress Lady Mary Gaye Curzon, was just twenty-one and single at the time. Sadly for William, she had no aspirations to date a prince and despite his amorous advances declared that she was not interested.

Meanwhile Kate had accepted an invitation to spend a fortnight in France at Fergus Boyd's family holiday home in the Dordogne with some friends from St Andrews. Among the group were Kate's friends Olivia Bleasdale and Ginny Fraser. She had not told them about the trial separation, but from her downcast mood her friends guessed, and one evening she confided to them that she and William were taking a break. 'She was debating whether or not she should text or call him. She got quite drunk on white wine and really let her guard down,' recalled one of the group. 'She said how sad she was and how much she was missing William, but she never mentioned it after that.'

By November they were back at St Andrews, although they had yet to reconcile their differences. I had reported the news of their separation that summer and tellingly there was no denial from Clarence House. Privately William complained to friends that he was feeling 'claustrophobic' and was already thinking ahead to the summer after graduation, when he was planning to return to Kenya to see Jecca Craig, another fly in the ointment as far as Kate was concerned. 'William has been unhappy in their relationship for a while, but the last thing he wants is a high-profile split in the crucial months leading up to his finals,' I was told at the time. On the advice of her mother, who had been a sounding board that summer, Kate gave William some breathing s.p.a.ce. It was made all the harder because they were living together, but instead of spending weekends in St Andrews or travelling to Balmoral, Kate would return home to be with her parents.

It was obviously the break that William needed, and by Christmas they were back together again, although Kate had a condition. Word had reached her of William's visits to Isabella and she insisted that William was not to contact her again. With their finals looming in May they agreed to take things slowly. Kate had stayed away from Edward Van Cutsem's wedding to the Duke of Westminster's daughter Lady Tamara Grosvenor that November but she happily accepted an invitation to Prince Charles's fifty-sixth birthday party at Highgrove later that month. Charles already saw Kate as a daughter in-law and the following March he invited her to Klosters for his pre-wedding holiday. Kate was photographed taking a gondola up the slopes with Charles and enjoying lunch with the princes and their friends. It had really been intended as a boys-only trip but this time Kate was not left out.

Charles and Camilla were to be married on 9 April 2005 and the prince wanted one last skiing holiday with his sons first. Both brothers had given their blessing for Charles to remarry. 'Great,' Harry said on hearing the news. 'Go for it. Why not?' William was to be a witness at the civil ceremony together with Camilla's son Tom, and had the added responsibility of looking after the wedding rings. The British public appeared to have accepted Charles's long-term mistress. In a YouGov poll at the time 65 per cent of respondents said that the couple should be free to marry compared to just 40 per cent in 1998. The Palace had hoped to break the news of the royal engagement, but to their embarra.s.sment the Evening Standard Evening Standard, a London newspaper, got the scoop and ran the story on 10 February before the official announcement. Prince Charles's communications secretary Paddy Harverson confirmed the news and explained that there would be no official photocall until the wedding day. The last thing anyone wanted was the newspapers running pictures of Charles and Diana alongside Charles and his new bride. It would cause unnecessary hurt to everyone, especially William and Harry.

The run-up to the wedding was beset with problems. Charles and Camilla wanted a civil wedding at Windsor Castle, but when it was realised that if a licence was granted any other couple could also be married there, the plan was sc.r.a.pped. Instead it was decided that Charles and Camilla would marry at Windsor Guildhall, followed by a blessing in St George's Chapel in the castle given by the Archbishop of Canterbury for 700 guests, and finally a reception hosted by the Queen. Camilla was dubbed a 'town hall bride' in the papers, and even though over Christmas the Queen had privately given her blessing for Charles to remarry, there was speculation that she would not be attending the nuptials. QUEEN S SNUBS C CHARLES W WEDDING was one of the headlines in the was one of the headlines in the Daily Telegraph Daily Telegraph, while the New York Post New York Post speculated, Q speculated, QUEEN TO TO S SKIP C CHUCK N NUPS. Charles was crestfallen that his wedding day was being labelled a 'fiasco', while Camilla was said to be so stressed she had taken up yoga. William and Harry a.s.sured their father that he was making the right decision. It was more than seven years since the death of their mother, and although not a day pa.s.sed when they didn't think about her, they wanted him to be happy. 'We are both very happy for our father and Camilla and we wish them all the luck in the future,' they said in a joint statement. While it had been difficult for them in the early years, the boys realised that their papa was happier with his long-term mistress in his life, and they had warmed to Camilla. 'We love her to bits,' remarked Harry.

Against all the odds the wedding was a success, even though it was delayed for twenty-four hours because of the death of Pope John Paul II. 'Can anything else possibly go wrong?' asked the Daily Mail Daily Mail. It was the question on everyone's lips at the Palace too, but when Camilla emerged from the shadows of the Guildhall into the spring sunshine to rapturous applause on Sat.u.r.day 9 April, it seemed the worst really was finally behind them. Present was a tiny fraction of the number of people that had gathered in the Mall years before to watch Prince Charles kiss the virgin bride Diana, but the crowds that lined the streets of Windsor waved Union Jacks, smiled and wished the couple well. As William gave Camilla a kiss for the cameras, Harry and his cousins Beatrice and Eugenie walked up to St George's Chapel. The impish prince gave a cheeky thumbs up and performed a merry jig for the waving crowds. The most moving tribute that day was from the Queen, who announced at Windsor Castle, 'My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.' For the first time she had given the couple her public blessing.

Camilla was now part of the family, and when William graduated on 23 June 2005 she was there along with Charles, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen. William and Kate had dreaded and looked forward to the day in equal measure. They had enjoyed one last party before their finals and in keeping with tradition attended the annual May Ball, organised by the Kate Kennedy Club at Kinkell Farm. Uncharacteristically, Kate drank so much Fergus Boyd had to carry her out before the night ended. Now, as they walked into Younger Hall, which smelled of floor polish and summer, they exchanged a smile and took their seats. Kate looked stunning in a simple short black skirt, white blouse and heels, and sat five rows in front of William, who was dressed in a suit beneath his black gown with cherry-coloured silk lining. He slipped from his seat ten minutes before his name was called, before re-emerging from a side room to join the other graduands. Not only was he anxious about the ceremony, which had attracted numbers of the town's residents and hundreds of press, there had been an embarra.s.sing to-do over the royals' attendance.

The Queen, who had been 'under the weather' according to William, had asked her private secretary to request that the ninety-minute ceremony was moved from the morning to the afternoon to ensure that she had plenty of time to get to St Andrews. While the university was delighted to accommodate the royal party and provided the Queen with a potted history of every student graduating, they had been unprepared to alter the timetable. According to the university's head of communications, St Andrews has two graduation ceremonies a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon and it was simply not possible to change them around. 'I'm not surprised the university wouldn't move the ceremony,' remarked Andrew Neil, who left St Andrews in 2002. 'What we did from day one was treat William as normal, so why change it on the final day?' If she was feeling unwell, the Queen did not let it show, and she smiled broadly as William knelt before the chancellor's wooden pulpit to collect his parchment. The Duke of Edinburgh and the recently married Charles and Camilla looked proudly on as a burst of flash photography captured the moment when William Wales was awarded a 2.1 in geography.

Minutes later Kate was called to the stage as Catherine Middleton to receive her 2.1 in the history of art. When it came to the end of the ceremony, the words of vice-chancellor Dr Brian Lang must have seemed particularly poignant. 'You will have made lifelong friends,' he told the graduates. 'You may have met your husband or wife. Our t.i.tle as the top matchmaking university in Britain signifies so much that is good about St Andrews, so we rely on you to go forth and multiply.'

Chapter 11.

Stepping in line at Sandhurst.

n.o.body's really supposed to love it, it's Sandhurst ... you get treated like a piece of dirt to be honest.Prince Harry Harry had dreamed of joining the army since he was a little boy dressing up in military fatigues and playing toy soldiers. When he was accepted as an officer cadet at Sandhurst his dream came true. Harry would become the first senior royal to join the British army since 1960, when Prince Michael of Kent, the Queen's cousin and grandson of King George V, enrolled at the Royal Military Academy. Traditionally the Windsors have served in the Royal Navy. The Duke of Edinburgh joined in 1939 and commanded the frigate HMS Magpie Magpie, while Prince Andrew, Duke of York reached the rank of honorary captain in the Royal Navy. Charles also served in the Royal Navy after training as an RAF pilot. Harry had heard all about Sandhurst from Mark Dyer. The college was formed in 1947 by the amalgamation of two previous army training colleges and under its motto 'Serve to Lead' has trained officers from all over the world. At the end of their training Sir Winston Churchill and King Hussein of Jordan both pa.s.sed out on the famous quadrangle in front of Old College, and now it was Harry's chance to undertake the punishing forty-eight-week training course.

Following his somewhat controversial and unplanned double gap year, the prince was finally ready for some serious work. He had been warned that the first five weeks at the military academy would be the hardest of his life and that 15 per cent of all cadets drop out during this period, but he had already had a taste of what was to come during a four-day a.s.sessment in Westbury, Wiltshire. It had been tough, but he had pa.s.sed the notoriously hard Regular Commissions Board entrance exams with flying colours. Due to enroll in January 2005, he sustained an injury to his left knee while coaching rugby to children in October 2004, and had to delay his entry by four months, but on the morning of 8 May 2005 Harry promised himself he would not fail. As he pulled up at Old College, the grand cream-fronted nineteenth-century building that looks on to the academy's quadrangle, acres of greenery and a man-made lake, Harry took in his new surroundings. His father had driven him to Camberley and now looked proudly on as Harry, still tanned from a two-week safari in Botswana with Chelsy, enrolled as Cadet Wales.

For the first five weeks Harry was allowed to venture no further than the academy's main buildings Old College and New College and the exercise fields. While Camberley town has little to offer in terms of nightlife and eating out, it is just thirty-four miles south of London, and the fact that Harry could not leave was a daunting prospect for the young prince. The idea is that by keeping the cadets within the academy, everyone is treated and a.s.sessed uniformly and has the chance to bond with their platoon. Harry had been sent a packing list, and after being shown to his room, a cell measuring nine by ten feet containing a sink, a chest of drawers, a cupboard and a desk, he started to unpack. He had brought with him several jars of polish, which he would use daily to buff his army boots, and his own ironing board. For a boy who had never had to press a shirt or shine his shoes, it was a rude awakening.

Harry rose before dawn every morning, when the day started with room inspection by Colour Sergeant Glen Snazle from the Grenadier Guards. His bed, with its single plain blue duvet, was checked, as was his uniform, which had to be pressed in a certain and very particular way. His sink was to be clean, his military kit serviceable and his civilian clothes washed and put away. If his room was not up to standard, he would receive a 'show parade', where he would be inspected again that night. He was not allowed to listen to pop music; instead all radios were to be tuned to BBC Radio 4. Laptops and mobile phones were confiscated on day one, but would be returned after five weeks. Televisions were not allowed in bedrooms, nor were posters, plants or photographs. Harry was expected to report for duty every day, even Sundays, when he would have to attend chapel.

From the moment he was awake he was on his feet, carrying out drill, physical training and domestic ch.o.r.es which included polishing and re-polishing his army-issue black boots until his sergeant could see his reflection in them. Despite being the only cadet with round-the-clock protection, Harry had insisted he wanted to be treated the same as everyone else. It was something the commandant of Sandhurst, Major General Andrew Ritchie, had a.s.sured him would be the case. 'I have removed certain cadets from Sandhurst as their behaviour is not up to the standards of an officer, and I would do so again,' said General Ritchie. 'We get used to people here who have worked four hours and slept twenty. Here we reverse that. Some find it a struggle.' The academy's straight-talking Sergeant Major Vince Gaunt was equally direct. 'Prince Harry will call me sir. And I will call him sir. But he will be the one who means it.'

The arrival of such a high-profile cadet inevitably put Sandhurst in the spotlight, and embarra.s.singly for the academy, which has armed guards at its fortified entrance gates and vehicle checks, there was a major security alert within weeks of Harry's arrival. A British tabloid newspaper claimed one of its journalists had got into the college carrying a fake bomb. It was the latest in a series of security blunders around the royal family, who were still hugely embarra.s.sed that an imposter had crashed William's twenty-first-birthday celebrations while an undercover reporter had spent months working for the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

Unperturbed, Harry immersed himself in the training. 'It's a bit of a struggle but I got through it,' he later said of his five-week induction. 'I do enjoy running down a ditch full of mud, firing bullets; it's the way I am. I love it.' He had discovered a new pa.s.sion and inner confidence. For Harry the army was a chance to show that despite his past hiccups he could succeed. While he had struggled to keep up at Eton, he was top of the cla.s.s at Sandhurst. He quickly mastered the basics of general drill and weapons handling but because of his knee he found the physical training a challenge. He was nicknamed 'Sicknote' after he was sent to the private Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey with infected blisters, the result of a five-day exercise in Ashdown Forest in Suss.e.x. Unlike William he was messy, and his sergeant would put him on restricted privileges confined to the academy when his room was not up to scratch. While he was occasion -ally in trouble with his seniors, he was popular among his peers in Alamein Company, who recalled that Harry would always keep a secret stash of cigarettes under his mattress, having failed to kick the habit.

A world away from Boujis, Sandhurst was the best thing to happen to Harry. He completed a punishing twenty-six-hour race across the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons in record time and scored top marks during a training exercise in Cyprus. On his twenty-first birthday, which was a low-key affair celebrated with his platoon in the academy bar, where pints cost 1.20, he made it clear that he had every intention of fighting on the front line. In an interview he gave around the same time he said, 'There's no way I'm going to put myself through Sandhurst and then sit on my a.r.s.e back at home while my boys are out fighting for their country.' They were fighting words, and Harry meant every one. Showing a new maturity, he also apologised for his past mistakes and for the first time spoke about his ill-advised n.a.z.i outfit: 'It was a very stupid thing to do and I've learned my lesson.'

He could not resist a dig at William, who was set to follow him at Sandhurst. He adored his older brother, but until now he had always lived his life on William's coat-tails. Now Harry was in the driving seat. 'When I have left I'll have to make a special effort to visit him for comedy value just so he can salute me,' he joked. 'Every year we get closer. It's amazing how close we've become. We have even resorted to hugging each other,' he revealed in the same interview. 'Ever since our mother died, obviously we were close, but he is the one person on this earth who I can talk [to] about anything. We understand each other and we give each other support.' He also talked about his father's recent wedding, commenting that Charles was 'much more relaxed' since the marriage. Speaking about Camilla for the first time he said, 'She's a wonderful woman, and she has made our father very happy, which is the most important thing.' He dismissed any idea that she was a 'wicked stepmother' and insisted, 'We are very grateful for her. We're very happy to have her around.'

In the New Year, which William and Kate had seen in together at a cottage on the Sandringham estate, it was William's turn to prove he could rise to the challenge of Sandhurst. The twenty-three-year-old prince arrived in driving rain on 8 January 2006 accompanied by his father and private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, a former SAS officer. After being introduced to Major General Ritchie, William signed into Blenheim Company, bade farewell to his father and was shown to his room overlooking Old College, which would be home for the next forty-eight weeks. Not prepared to risk the sort of security fiasco that had marred Harry's arrival, the college worked closely with the prince's team of personal protection officers, who accompanied him on every exercise in their blacked-out cars.

Knowing he would not see Kate for over a month, William had taken Harry's advice and whisked her off on yet another holiday to Klosters after the New Year celebrations. The Swiss resort was one of their favourite places, and Kate had mastered the off-piste runs, occasionally outshining William with her impressive technique. Just two years earlier the couple's romance had been revealed on these slopes as William put his arm around Kate in an unthinking show of intimacy. This time there was no holding back in spite of the cameras. Standing together in the deep powder snow, William pulled Kate towards him and kissed her. It was clear that he had found someone he could love, someone he was completely at ease with, a woman who understood and accepted the huge pressures that came with dating him. Apparently, a number of dates had been pencilled in the royal calendar in antic.i.p.ation of an engagement announcement.

Such planning might seem a touch premature, but for the royal family this was quite normal. The Palace works months and sometimes years in advance: preparations for the Queen Mother's funeral started in 1969. 'It's being talked about within the Palace very openly,' a well-placed source insisted to me. 'The word is that there might be an announcement in the spring.' It was the sort of predictive story that needed to be taken with a pinch of salt, and Clarence House was quick to deny any concrete plans were in place. But there was definitely something to the story, which was picked up by royal commentators and newspapers around the world. Of course William had yet to pop the question, but as far as insiders at the Palace and his inner circle were concerned it was only a matter of time. There was no escaping the fact that in Kate Middleton Prince William had found a potential bride.

Kate had arranged a farewell drinks party for William at Clarence House and had been dreading the moment they would have to say goodbye. William would miss her twenty-fourth birthday and she wanted to make sure they could at least celebrate before he left for Sandhurst. They had had a wonderful summer after working through their rocky patch. After they graduated William travelled to New Zealand, where he represented the Queen at events commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War and spent time with the British Lions, who were there on tour. Then he visited Jecca in Kenya, but this time he took Kate with him. He wanted her to experience the wild beauty of the country he had grown to love and rea.s.sure her that she had no cause to worry about Jecca. William had whisked Kate off for a romantic holiday at the Masai Lodge where they stayed at the 1,500-a-night Il Ngwesi Lodge in the MukoG.o.do Hills of northern Kenya. During the day William worked on the Craig family's Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, which protects the endangered black rhino from poachers. In the evenings he and Kate would sip c.o.c.ktails and dine al fresco. The post-graduation holiday had been a blissful fortnight, and they had been joined by Jecca and William's friend Thomas van Straubenzee. When they left, William and Kate promised to return again soon.

As William prepared for Sandhurst his girlfriend had moved to London and into the flat her parents had bought for her. As she set about sending her CV to art galleries she had plenty of time to wonder about her future. William, on the other hand, had the next year all planned. He spent a fortnight working at Chatsworth on the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire's 35,000-acre Peak District estate and three weeks doing work experience at HSBC's headquarters in St James Street in London and the Bank of England. He had already decided he wanted to be a pilot like his Uncle Andrew, and had enjoyed the fortnight he had spent working with the RAF Valley Mountain Rescue Team in Anglesey, where he learned about helicopter flying and mountain rescue. Having decided he wanted a career in the military, he joked that he had sent Harry to Sandhurst as his guinea pig.

Joking aside, Sandhurst was unlike anything he had ever known. Echoing his message to Harry, Major General Ritchie told the waiting media that William would be treated exactly the same as every other cadet: 'Everyone is judged on merit. There are no exceptions made.' Occasionally William was afforded special treatment. As the only cadet to be president of the Football a.s.sociation, he was given leave during his second term to travel to Germany to support England during the World Cup, much to the envy of his fellow cadets. Harry had also been granted leave to compete in the Cartier International polo tournament in the summer of 2005. While the rest of his platoon was in chapel, he had enjoyed a champagne lunch in the July sunshine and mingled with socialites and celebrities in the VIP tent. Such privileges were rare however, and when it came to their training, neither prince was given special treatment.

William was under the command of Sergeant Major Simon Nichols and Colour Sergeants Nathan Allen and Jimmy Parke from the Irish Guards. He took up judo when he started at Sandhurst but found that being left-handed prevented him making much progress. His natural fitness helped him to cope with the punishing training exercises, but his plan to keep up the yoga he had mastered in Chile was abandoned. He was simply too tired to do anything at the end of the day and mornings weren't an option. William made the most of every minute he had to stay in bed and rest his aching body. While he just about coped with the physical exhaustion of the eighteen-hour days, he found the monotony of Sandhurst challenging. On his leaves he complained that he was constantly exhausted and could not get to grips with making his bed 'the Sandhurst way', which included tucking the sheets in with precisely the right number of folds before room inspection at 5.30 a.m.

By spring, with William knee deep in trench trainin