Loving mother: Diana with William at Sandringham in 1990. Even at such a young age, the Prince was trying to avoid taking sides as his parents' marriage broke up
Millions of women felt a pang of envy towards Kate Middleton this week, and not just because she was being swept away by a handsome prince. It was because of something William said, quite matter-of-factly, in the middle of their television interview.
‘We are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together,’ he told the millions watching. And as he uttered those words, intimate little smiles passed between himself and the future Princess Catherine. His comfort with her, her confidence in him, was utterly transparent.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand why William does not intend to repeat the mistakes of his father. Thirty years ago, Prince Charles set the tone of his own tragic marriage to the young Lady Diana in four ill-chosen words that will pursue him to his grave — ‘whatever “in love” means’.
What has to be surprising is the sheer certainty that radiated from William. He is, after all, the elder son who saw and absorbed all the misery and unhappiness that characterised his parents’ 11 years of living under the same roof.
He heard the raised voices and he saw the tears.
‘Don’t cry, Mummy,’ he said on one occasion, when she had fled tearfully into the bathroom after yet another row with Charles.
He was eight, and on holiday from Ludgrove school in Berkshire, yet here was this little boy, trying hard at such an early age not to take sides, pushing Kleenex tissues under the bathroom door and vowing to be a policeman when he grew up so that he could make sure she was safe.
It is said that children who suffer the trauma of growing up in a warring domestic atmosphere often repeat the circumstances in their own marriage — and if anyone ought to be a candidate for this projection of his life, it is William.
On top of the ghastliness of so many desolate childhood days, his mother died when he was 15 and it was left to Charles, a single parent, to guide him and his brother Harry through the crucial teenage years.
Worse, his childhood is marked by a whole host of broken marriages all about him in the royal family — his great-aunt Princess Margaret, his aunt Princess Anne and his uncle Prince Andrew.
Little wonder, then, he has taken so long to decide to marry the girl he met seven years ago when they were both 21-year-old students at St Andrews University.
Little wonder, too, that he wanted Kate to be sure about the marriage, as he also indicated in the interview.
One can feel a sense of relief about William now. For the first time in his life, he has a family — Kate’s family, that is — that is filled with all the ease and loyalty that he never knew at home. Well, two homes, to be exact: Kensington Palace, where his mother lived, and Highgrove, where his father spent most of his time.
It is only natural that he has formed a deep attachment to Michael and Carole Middleton, as well as their other children, Pippa and James, and taken every opportunity in recent times to spend weekends with them in Bucklebury — sometimes eating dinner on a tray in front of the television — as well as going on skiing holidays with them.
A sense of normality: Because of Diana, the young Princes learned about the world outside of privilege and are now able to muck in when it comes to domesic matters
Like millions of other children from broken homes, he has found in them the ‘happy family’ he always dreamed of; parents who settle their differences without slamming doors and throwing down ultimatums.
So how great is the danger of William being anything like his father as a husband? According to one dowager who is close to the royal family, the answer is ‘Not at all’.
She says: ‘When Charles was married to Diana, and there was a problem, he would always consult “helpful” others — usually Camilla or Dale (Lady) Tryon. Of course, it didn’t help that Diana was so young. Remember, Charles was 12 years older than she was.
‘William won’t do that. You can see he and Kate are a partnership.
‘Mind you, he has as much to learn about being a good husband as Kate has to learn about being a good princess.’
What one can say is that husband William won’t mind doing the washing up — unlike his father, who seldom gets his hands dirty beyond dead-heading his roses.
Kate has watched over and over the film of 18-year-old William on his gap year to Patagonia, on his knees in the communal lavatory, scrubbing the floor around the toilet bowl.
‘It’s one of her favourite movies,’ says a friend. ‘She says it takes a real man to do a job like that.’
Which gives her — in addition to that sapphire and diamond engagement ring — another intriguing link with Diana.
For as William still remembers, his mother was always telling him: ‘You must be a man before you can be a prince.’
The lengths Diana went to in schooling William about the real world are also the main reason why this future king will be a very different royal husband from those who have gone before.
It goes back to William’s childhood and rows that Diana had with Charles about William’s (and Harry’s) education. Charles wanted the young William to begin his academic life at home, just as he did, with a governess.
Diana totally disagreed. She wanted her son mixing freely — and anonymously — with other children, as early as possible. She knew the system. After all, hadn’t she been a kindergarten assistant herself?
She had seen children from the smartest homes mixing and moving comfortably among others of all classes, colours and religions. That’s what she wanted for William.
And she won the day. At the age of three, the future king was unloaded into the rough and tumble of Mrs Mynors’ kindergarten in Notting Hill Gate.
There were grumbles from courtiers that she was wrong not to give William the strong base of self-discipline that governesses had imbued for generations into their royal charges. Heaven knows what those same courtiers would say now, but there is zero chance of the governess returning.
A traumatic atmosphere: The situation of broken marriages that Prince William grew up in are a reason why it has taken him so long to propose to Kate
It is only because of Diana that William was able to immerse himself in life as an ordinary student at St Andrews and meet Kate in the first place. And why he will be perfectly happy, after the wedding, to continue to live in a farmhouse in Wales.
One clue can be found in a remark that his mother made when he was 11 years old and they were guests at the country house of Lord Palumbo, the multi-millionaire property developer and former chairman of the Arts Council.
William wandered around gazing at Lord Palumbo’s collection of priceless antiques and objets d’art. ‘Whoever lives here must be very rich,’ he piped up to his mother. Diana replied: ‘Not rich, darling, fortunate.’
Another important early lesson which remains, for William, as tangible as the engagement ring he carried in his knapsack for three weeks before giving it to Kate in Kenya, is what Diana told him about people when he was small: ‘Not everybody drives a Range Rover and takes several foreign holidays a year.’
This was all part of Diana’s mission to ensure that William (and Harry, of course) knew all about the world outside the gates of privilege.
How far-sighted she was, for her teaching will enable William to slip into married life pretty much like any other flying officer at RAF Valley.
One gets the impression that, thanks to his mother’s lessons, he is willing to muck in when in comes to domestic matters. In the television interview this week, Kate recalled how the Prince would often cook for her at university, even if ‘it would always come with a bit of angst and a bit of anger if something had gone wrong’. The sense of relaxed informality between them is plain to see.
Everything, in fact, about William indicates that he will not make the same mistakes as his parents. ‘He is very thoughtful about Kate, and I know he will be very patient with her as she learns the ropes about being a royal,’ says a palace aide.
‘He’ll be thrilled if she’s a hit with the public. He’s not like his father in this respect. Nothing would please him more than to find people surging past him so that they can get a good look at Kate.’
At the same time, William is aware of themanipulative habits of palace Svengalis, whose influence did so much to make his mother feel uncomfortable and unhappy.
An intensely private young man by nature, he will do his utmost to separate his married life from royal duties. He is determined that those interfering royal advisers — those whom Diana called ‘the men in grey suits’ — must not be allowed to spoil their happiness by forcing him ever to put duty before his wife.’
As one of Diana’s closest aides puts it: ‘I have witnessed the damage these people can do to a marriage. William and his wife will only survive by sharing their anxieties and problems with each other. They must resist the temptation to take their troubles somewhere else.’
One figure transcends this advice. This is Diana’s elder sister, 55-year-old Lady
Sarah McCorquodale. Sarah is William’s closest link to his mother and has always been there when he wanted to talk through a problem. She has met Kate, and considers her to be ‘perfect’ for her nephew.
So William will be a close, somewhat domesticated, attentive and caring husband. But will he be faithful?
His father, in a blistering row that reverberated through their then apartment in Kensington Palace, once shouted at Diana when she challenged him about Camilla: ‘Do you really expect me to be the first Prince of Wales in history not to have a mistress?’
To which one of William’s closest male friends says drily: ‘William is not his father
Source:Dailymail