Royals at War

by Dylan Howard

  Speaking some years later, the owner of the house, Charlotte Smith, said she had initially decided against renting to the Prince—she had instituted a “no-boys” policy after previous tenants caused property damage. When asked if William could move in, she initially said: “I still don’t want to do it, thank you. I’d rather not do that … because I didn’t know how he was going to behave off the leash, as it were. We arranged to meet Kate Middleton, Fergus, and Olivia before they moved in, but we thought we’d better not ask to see Prince William because we thought his credit rating must be quite good. But he was very friendly, very charming … a thoroughly nice man.”

  “He was just another very down-to-earth normal guy,” echoes Julian Knight. “There were no real airs and graces if you like. It was just sort of, ‘Alright mate, how are you doing?’ and we had a relationship which was very matey [friendly] basically.’”

  William embraced the relative normality of being an undergraduate. “I remember being in his room once and he [Prince William] had started to get into motorbikes, and he was looking at all these leathers,” recalled Knight. “There were two on the screen and he was saying, ‘I can’t decide whether I want that one or I want that one.’ I was like, ‘Well, why don’t you get them both?’ and he looked at me and was like, ‘No man, these are like £1,000 each.’ At the time we were all on an allowance, but I think it genuinely seemed like he didn’t have any more money than the rest of us. He wasn’t flashy or didn’t wear a big watch—he didn’t rock up in amazing cars or motorbikes or anything like that. He’d buy the odd tray of drinks in the pub, or shots or whatever, but so would everyone.”

  With typical vagueness, William later reflected on the start of his real relationship with Kate, sharing the house at 13a Hope Street. “It just sort of blossomed from there, really. We just saw more of each other, hung out a bit more and did stuff.”

  The “stuff” often included trips to their favorite haunt, the Ma Belles wine bar at the town’s Gold Hotel, where William and his friends would spend hours, enjoying drinks and laughs. Many years later, when William was giving a speech at a fundraiser for St Andrews, he jokingly warned “those of you who are parents of undergraduates right now, I give you one tip. Ask your son or daughter over the holidays if they know what Ma Bells is. If they answer yes, perhaps remove their wine glasses out of reach.”

  For a more romantic dinner à deux, William and Kate would go to the Oak Rooms, at the boutique hotel Ogstons on North Street, where staff remember him always making reservations under a cheeky alias and then arriving with the royal security team in tow. The Prince was said to favor the restaurant’s chicken fajitas, said a source, adding that while the couple were often affectionate and “very smoochy,” they did go Dutch when paying the check.

  Other times, William would cook for Kate and his housemates, as she told the BBC’s Mary Berry many years later. “In our university days, he used to cook all sorts of meals. I think that’s when he was trying to impress me, Mary! Things like Bolognese sauce and things like that.”

  Compared to Harry’s turbulent, high-octane love life at that point, William and Kate couldn’t have been any calmer or more mundane. But like his younger brother, William had his demons, buried deep down inside. He had just learned not to show them in public. For her part, Kate, the product of an upwardly aspirational, fiercely tight family unit, was the stability, calm, and nurturing he needed—and she loved to provide. Their union was blossoming, but it wouldn’t be an easy ride to the altar.

  BETTER STAND BACK

  In June 2003, William reached the grand old age of twenty-one. The British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion was commissioned to write a poem to celebrate the auspicious occasion:

  Better stand back

  Here’s an age attack,

  But the second in line

  Is dealing with it fine.

  It’s a threshold, a gateway,

  A landmark birthday;

  It’s a turning of the page,

  A coming of age.

  It’s a day to celebrate,

  A destiny, a fate;

  It’s a taking to the wing,

  A future thing.

  Better stand back

  Here’s an age attack,

  But the second in line

  Is dealing with it fine.

  It’s a sign of what’s to come,

  A start, and then some;

  It’s a difference growing,

  A younger sort of knowing.

  It’s a childhood gone,

  A step towards the crown;

  It’s a trigger of change,

  A stretching of the range.

  Better stand back

  Here’s an age attack,

  But the second in line

  Is dealing with it fine.

  William weathered the “age attack,” with a specially commissioned photo shoot with Mario Testino, one of his late mother’s favorite photographers. With typical William modesty, he claimed the choice was down to the fact that Testino was the only photographer who “could make a moose look good.” Giving a press interview to mark the occasion, he played down recent reports indicating he had expressed misgivings about being King.

  “Those stories about me not wanting to be King are all wrong. It’s a very important role and it’s one that I don’t take lightly. It’s all about helping people and dedication and loyalty, which I hope I have—I know I have.

  “The monarchy is something that needs to be there—I just feel it’s very, very important—it’s a form of stability and I hope to be able to continue that.”

  In the months leading up to William’s twenty-first, the Royals had been dealing with the particularly trying aftershocks of the dramatic trial of Paul Burrell. Diana’s former butler had taken millions of pounds worth of items from Diana’s residence following her death, claiming Diana had gifted them to him. There was also the small matter of a cassette tape, containing recordings of Diana that were said to be of a “sensitive” nature.

  Due to a last-minute, rather bizarre intervention by the Queen, Burrell was freed, although his behavior during the trial seemed to reveal him as being something of a narcissistic drama queen, rather than the discreet and reliable “rock” he claimed Diana had called him. When the truth emerged at the trial that, far from relying on him, the Princess found his overweening attention somewhat creepy, he wrote a scurrilous tell-all book, much to the anger of the young Princes he claimed to be so fond of. Indeed, according to Prince Charles’s biographer, Tom Bower, when raiding Burrell’s house, police also found two thousand photographic negatives—including what he claims were images of “Charles in the bath with his children, and many others showing the young Princes naked.”

  While the Burrell affair rumbled on, Kate’s quiet support by William’s side helped as he grimaced through the agony of hearing his mother’s name dragged through the courts, as the former butler detailed every intimate aspect of her life. Burrell’s mealy-mouthed excuses that he was protecting Diana’s legacy cut no ice with William and Harry, and the pair was in contact, united in fury that such a close member of the Royal staff should be so flagrantly betraying confidences and private conversations. When Burrell’s book came out, the brothers took the rare step of issuing a public statement denouncing it and Burrell, accusing him of abusing his position “in such a cold and overt betrayal” and asking him to “bring these revelations to an end.”

  As genial as William might be in public, the world now knew that when it came to matters of privacy and trust, he was a tenacious opponent whose scorn could make or break a transgressor.

  In their third year, William and Kate, plus Olivia and Fergus, moved into a house together. By now, their relationship was well known but the quartet was happy to continue living together, as they had formed a protective cocoon around the happy couple. The farmhouse, some distance out of St Andrews, provided ample privacy and beautiful countryside, ideal for the pair to enjoy long country walks and the soothing
balms of nature. William was also enjoying his courses immensely even if there was the occasional unwelcome reminder of his “other” life. In June 2004, he was part of a field trip to Norway, to study the Jostedalen ice cap, in the west of the country. According to his tutors on the trip, the Prince was relaxed, happy, and thrilled to be in the anonymity of remote Norway, undisturbed and able to pursue his passion for the environment and geography.

  The expedition went well at first. By day, William worked hard. At night, he regaled the company over dinner with funny and revealing anecdotes about life in the Royal Family. It all ended up with weary predictability, however, when on the third day, the team awoke to find much of the world’s media camped outside along with them. Since the expedition’s base was in the tiny remote village of Gjerde, it was a fair assumption a pack of journalists and photographers had assembled there all one morning for no other reason than to bay for quotes, interviews, photographs, and film of the young Prince. Though severely disgruntled, he immediately donned his baseball cap, shrugged, and acceded glumly to the shouted requests to pose and smile.

  By now, the world had met Kate, albeit inadvertently. During Easter 2004, she had accompanied William on the traditional skiing break his father usually took, in Klosters, Austria. William often took friends along too, making for a large party. The Royals had long agreed to the usual form of posing for a photo call on the first day of their holidays in exchange for some peace and privacy. Once that was done, perhaps a little too trustingly, William took the opportunity to give his girlfriend a smooch on the lips. Too late, they realized that they had been caught in the act on camera. The pictures were a global sensation. The world wanted to know: who was the stunning brunette snogging the Prince?

  THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT KATE

  Marlborough College is a coeducational independent boarding school for pupils aged thirteen to eighteen, set amid 286 acres of rolling countryside in Wiltshire, England. It was initially planned as a school for the sons of the clergymen who founded it in 1843, with 199 boys forming the first intake. But since then—following a rebellion by the pupils in the 1850s protesting the spartan conditions—the historical buildings have welcomed pupils from the upper echelons of British society, and around the world. Notable alumni include legendary nineteenth-century artist and designer William Morris, poets John Betjeman and Siegfried Sassoon, musicians Chris de Burgh and Nick Drake, and, of course, Royals, including Princess Eugenie of York and Princess Anne’s former husband, Captain Mark Phillips.

  The school tiptoed into the modern era by admitting women into the sixth form in 1968. When it was discovered that it did not collapse with the admittance of girls, nor did its inmates turn into a frenzy of carnal abandon, the college became fully coeducational in 1989, the first school of its caliber to do so. Today, Marlborough continues to flourish, with almost a thousand pupils enjoying a thoroughly up-to-date, well-rounded education that spans sports, scholarship, and extracurricular activity.

  For a school that only turns out eighty female students a year, Marlborough has a considerable track record in producing notable female alumnae. In recent times, female Marlburians have numbered Kate Middleton; Samantha, wife of former Prime Minister David Cameron; Frances Osborne, wife of his Chancellor George; Sally Bercow, wife of the former Parliamentary Speaker John; and Diana Fox, wife of the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney.

  As for the shy, gawky girl who showed up with her parents to join the school in 1996, well, she would one day be married to the heir to the throne …

  Kate had begun her secondary education at a small private school, Downe House, near her family home in Bucklebury. But she hadn’t settled in, and Michael and Carole set their sights on posh Marlborough, a place where a girl could mingle with the aristocracy and make the crucial social connections that could only be properly forged in childhood.

  As the family’s party-supply business, Party Pieces, was flourishing, the eye-watering £29,000 annual fees could be managed. For ambitious Carole, the prospect of their daughter attending a school such as Marlborough was tantalizing. The historic establishment opened up a vista of social prospects for the Middletons.

  Beginning a new school is nerve-racking enough for any child. But it’s downright stomach-churning for a shy, quiet child showing up halfway through the first year into the intimidating environs of one of the country’s most exclusive schools. For Kate—or Catherine, as she was more commonly known at that point—it was terrifying, said a source. Her nerves had been primed by her unhappy time at Downe House. When she arrived at Marlborough in the middle of the first year, crucial friendships had already been forged, alliances struck, and the unwritten social hierarchy found in any school had been established. On initial impressions, the other girls weren’t particularly dazzled by the newbie.

  The first friend Kate made, Jessica Hay, remembers the future Duchess as being rather “shy and gawky.” Another girl, Gemma Williamson, recalls a quiet, homesick child who “looked thin and pale. She had very little confidence.”

  Meanwhile, Kate’s house tutor at Marlborough, Joan Gall, was concerned for her new charge from day one. Kate was so stressed, she was suffering from eczema. “When she arrived she was very quiet,” Ms. Gall remembers. “Coming into a big school like Marlborough was difficult, but she settled in quickly. It was like a big, happy family. We would do things like bake cakes and watch videos.”

  It didn’t take long for Kate to get a handle on life at Marlborough. Her housemistress Mrs. Patching would later recall, “Catherine was able to settle in very easily. She got involved in school life and loved sport and music.”

  Kathryn Solari, who was in her Biology class, added, “Catherine was always really sweet and lovely. She treated everybody alike. She was a good girl and quite preppy—she always did the right thing—and she was very sporty. I wouldn’t say she was the brightest button, but she was very hard-working.”

  Another friend from her year recalled a girl who was “ordinary, hard-working, athletic, and easygoing. Media depictions swing between a snooty Sloane and a dastardly commoner. Both are wrong.”

  Kate soon showed off her sporting prowess, becoming joint captain of the tennis team with her friend Alice St John Webster, as well as excelling in swimming, high jump, netball, and hockey. She was a giggler, fun-loving, and mischievous, but never a serious rule breaker. “Even when we all passed our exams and were partying, I never saw her drunk,” recalled another fellow student. “Kate only had a few glugs of vodka.”

  Having achieved a solid set of eleven passes at her GCSEs in 1998, Catherine enjoyed a well-earned family break in the Caribbean that summer. And it was now, with her exams over, that she turned her attention to a personal makeover. Guided by her mother’s unerring eye and sense of style, Kate put together an entire new look, eye-catching and dramatic, yet tasteful.

  When she returned to school that autumn, fellow pupils, who had never considered Kate to be one of the school’s glamourpusses, were stunned. Gone was the mousy, pony-tailed, knock-kneed geek. Now, Middleton swept back into her dorm rooms an elegant and charismatic young woman.

  “It happened quite suddenly,” remembered her friend Gemma Williamson. “Catherine came back from the long summer break an absolute beauty. She never wore particularly fashionable or revealing clothes, but she had an innate sense of style.”

  A teacher at the school remembers how Catherine had quietly managed to upstage her boisterous and cheeky younger sister, Pippa, who joined Marlborough in 1997: “Pippa was a boyish girl; however, Kate had lost her props and looked dazzling. She was wearing makeup and looked astounding.”

  This characteristic sense of panache and decorum was to become a Kate characteristic. Friends and staff noted that Kate had a strong moral compass instilled by her hardworking and socially ambitious parents, and now, this maturity stood her in good stead throughout her teens. As she moved up the school, friends recall how she was careful around the typical teenage high jinks that w
ould go on, such as sneaking out of school at night for trysts with boys or illicit dorm parties with smuggled wines, spirits, and cigarettes. She would always be part of the gang, often obligingly keeping an ear out for a passing teacher. But she would generally avoid drinking, smoking, or getting up to any sort of forbidden peccadilloes.

  She did, however, have a childish love of pranking, which saw her go through an uncharacteristic phase of mooning surprised male students from her dorm windows, a habit that inspired the affectionate nickname Middlebum. Clambering up to the dormitory windows, to the amazement and disbelief of her chums, Kate would drop her pants and treat passers-by to the sight of her bum, wiggling comically in the window. Kate would scream with laughter as cheers from the appreciative crowds outside egged her on. “She kind of got addicted to it,” Jessica Hay recalled. Over the course of one year, Hay estimated Kate flashed her rear in the window for anyone to see no fewer than ninety times.

  As the once-nervous young girl moved up through the school, she was becoming a confident, outgoing, and charismatic young lady. This was in keeping with the school’s well-founded reputation for turning out graceful, resourceful, and accomplished young women who go on to great things. According to another alumna, Kate Reardon, former editor of British society magazine Tatler, Marlborough played a huge role in nurturing Kate’s inner core of steel and outer mantle of calm.

  “A good education gives you confidence to stick up your hand for anything—whether it is the job you want, or the bloke,” she says. “And the more you stick up your hand, the better your chances are that you will get what you want. Also, a good school teaches you resilience—that ability to bounce back.”