Prince William Read online

  PRINCE WILLIAM

  THE MAN WHO WILL BE KING

  PENNY JUNOR

  PEGASUS BOOKS

  NEW YORK LONDON

  For Marlene, Max and Oscar

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  BEGINNINGS

  BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

  TRAGIC MISMATCH

  THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

  BABY WALES

  DOWN UNDER

  A NEW ARRIVAL

  HIS ROYAL NAUGHTINESS

  HIGHGROVE

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  A GIANT SLEEPOVER

  A VERY PUBLIC WAR

  ONE TAPE AFTER ANOTHER

  A TOUGH CHOICE

  THE PLAYING FIELDS OF ETON

  THE QUEEN CALLS TIME

  OUTSIDE THE GILDED CAGE

  TRAGEDY IN PARIS

  THE WEEK THE COUNTRY WAITED

  YOU CAN’T READ ABOUT THIS

  THE ENVELOPE

  GETTING ON WITH THE DAY

  UNEASY RELATIONSHIP

  THE MEETING WITH MRS P. B.

  PARTNERS IN CRIME

  BLOODY PIRATES

  THE SPORT OF KINGS

  OUT OF AFRICA

  THE OLD GREY TOWN

  A NORMAL STUDENT

  HORSE-TRADING

  LOSS AND LEARNING

  FINDING HIS FEET

  KATE

  HOPE STREET

  COMING OF AGE

  FINAL YEARS OF FREEDOM

  HARRY

  NEW REGIME

  GRADUATION

  HIS FATHER’S WITNESS

  IN HIS MOTHER’S FOOTSTEPS

  THE SQUARE MILE

  SOLDIERING

  BREAK-UP

  PHONE HACKING

  GOING SOLO

  LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE

  DRAWING A LINE

  FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION

  GETTING IT RIGHT

  A HOUSEHOLD OF THEIR OWN

  THE DAY JOB

  KEEPING THE MEMORY ALIVE

  DOSSING DOWN

  HELPING HEROES

  CREATING SYNERGY

  TWENTY EIGHTEEN

  FOUNDATION FOR THE FUTURE

  A RING ON HER FINGER

  ZERO TOLERANCE

  A QUIET FAMILY WEDDING

  A RIGHT ROYAL CELEBRATION

  PARTY AT THE PALACE

  CROSSING CONTINENTS

  TINSEL TOWN

  A NEW DECADE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  INDEX

  INTRODUCTION

  His mother was an icon, ‘the People’s Princess’, whose shocking, violent and early death plunged the nation into grief that bordered on hysteria and brought the monarchy perilously close to the end of the road. His father is one of the most controversial figures of the age and the man who will one day be King. Having written biographies about both the Prince and Princess of Wales, and followed them on and off for the last thirty years, the opportunity to write about their eldest son, Prince William, was irresistible. I find him one of the most interesting, remarkable and, whatever one’s view of the monarchy, important young men of his generation. One day he will inherit the throne of the United Kingdom. He will be Head of State, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Colonel-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and possibly Head of the Commonwealth. His face will be on our coins and our stamps; he will have little power but incalculable influence; he will represent the nation to itself and be the ultimate symbol of stability in a world of rapid change.

  Although he is second in line to the throne, and may not accede for a couple of decades or more, this character is key to ensuring the institution has a long-term future. The Queen, his grandmother, celebrating her Diamond Jubilee, has been a remarkable sovereign and is deservedly and universally loved and admired. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the Prince of Wales. The very public breakdown of his marriage and subsequent remarriage to the woman Diana blamed for her unhappiness, divided the nation and undermined almost everything the Prince had achieved in the last forty years. He has worked relentlessly to improve life for the less privileged in our society and to ensure that the earth is a safe and sustainable place for future generations. His dedication to duty has been unflinching but his approval rating among the public has never fully recovered.

  Opinion polls commissioned by newspapers asking whether the throne should skip a generation when the Queen dies suggest that a high percentage of the population would favour this outcome. According to these polls some people go further and think the Queen should abdicate so William could inherit the throne while he is young. These proposals are as realistic as fantasy football and fail entirely to understand how hereditary monarchy works. As the old refrain so aptly runs, ‘The King is dead, long live the King’, and when the Queen does come to the end of her life and, therefore, her reign, her son and heir, Charles, will become King, provided he is sane and fit when the time comes. Any engineering of the system is out of the question.

  I happen to believe he will be a very good King and I hope that public opinion will change. He has had bad press for most of his adult life and been unfairly judged. However, he will always be a man whose lifestyle and interests are far removed from those of the general public. This was not a problem sixty years ago when his mother came to the throne, although she is considerably less extravagant than Charles. But ours is a different and far less forgiving age. Deference and respect for all our institutions, not just the monarchy, has long gone. Usefulness and value for money have become all important. If it is to survive in the long term, the monarchy needs to be relevant and in tune with ordinary people. Paradoxically, Charles is very much in tune with the man in the street, more so than most politicians, and has a natural rapport with young and old, rich and poor – though this isn’t the general perception. As the former Prime Minister Sir John Major says, ‘The most important thing for the monarchy is that they aren’t seen to be curious creatures drafted in from Planet Windsor and who have nothing in common with and no relevance to the way most people live their lives.’

  William, with his less plummy voice, chinos and easy, jocular manner, is someone they can immediately relate to. He has more of his father in him than you might think, but also plenty of his mother’s impish humour and warmth. He also has the advantage of an almost normal upbringing, which his father never had. He knows how the rest of us live, knows what it’s like to get cash out of a hole-in-the-wall, peel potatoes and cook coq au vin. His father wouldn’t know where to begin.

  William plays polo and follows rich men’s pursuits, but he also loves rugby and football and plays a mean game of pool. There’s no denying he’s privileged and that most of his friends are wealthy, but he wears it very lightly; there is no trace of the arrogance that so often goes with the public school, hunting, shooting and fishing set. He is remarkably humble for a man in his position, modest and self-deprecating – laughing at himself is not only an endearing trait but also a very effective icebreaker when talking to strangers. And in our celebrity, body-perfect, youth-obsessed age, he ticks all the boxes.

  He is also Diana’s son. That alone makes him special. For so many people she was the beautiful fairytale Princess, the angel of mercy who, despite her own suffering and sadness, reached out and gave solace to others. They loved her with an alarming intensity, and they love the son who keeps alive her looks and so many of her mannerisms.

  The first fairytale had an unhappy ending. Now there is a new Princess and a new story. Catherine Middleton is reminiscent of Diana, and she’s another gift for the fashion industry, but she has the advantage of a stable background and a good education; and, unlike Diana, she had a long, hard look at the bizarre world William inhabit
s before agreeing to join him there. This love story is the genuine article, and William knows that it can’t disappoint. This union must be as solid, supportive and companionable as his grandparents’ marriage.

  ‘If you want to understand William,’ says one of his friends, ‘his relationship with the Middletons is the beginning and end of it. He likes them, they’re happy and they’re nice, straightforward people.’ And the fact that they are not blue-blooded is a bonus. For too long the Royal Family has been associated with the aristocracy and the upper classes.

  William is fiercely protective of Kate. He saw what happened to his mother and has seen the pain and torment his father has suffered by attempting to be open and honest. He will not make the same mistakes. He is determined to keep his private life private, as his grandmother has done. He will give his time, his talents, his energy and his enthusiasm to the country, but he won’t give his soul. His father allowed work and duty to all but take over his life. William will make sure he keeps enough time aside for himself and for his family.

  This steely determination to create the life he wants, and to be in control of it, is possibly the most noticeable effect of his home life as a child. While the world pruriently read about the War of the Waleses in newspapers and magazines, he lived through it. The woman killed so tragically, whom millions mourned, was his mother. As one of his friends says: ‘Imagine what it must have been like to live through the s**t of his childhood: the divorce, the acrimony, the shame of it all being played out in public, his mother’s Panorama interview, then she’s dead. His father’s mistress hanging around, then moving in. It makes you shudder. Even if you were living on a sink estate, you’d feel sorry for your neighbour if they’d gone through that.’

  What is interesting is how he came through it so apparently unscathed. If home had been a depressed sink estate, you would expect him to be badly damaged, a loner maybe, an addict, a dropout. Being rich offers no protection either; the scions of some of the oldest and wealthiest families in the land have gone disastrously off the rails. William didn’t even come close.

  He would be superhuman if he didn’t have demons. But he keeps them to himself; he is one of the most intensely private people you could meet. There are subjects he doesn’t talk about. If asked, the shutters come down and those that know him well know better than to ask. It’s a survival mechanism in a world where everyone wants a piece of him. On the outside he shows no sign of being anything other than a cheerful, grounded, well-adjusted human being, happy in his own skin, open, confident and content. At the very least he could be excused for turning his back on the people he blames for killing his mother. He never has. He has come through the experiences of his childhood and adolescence a strong and resolute character, but with vulnerabilities like everyone, and a wariness of strangers, but a great capacity to love. His close friends are a small and tightly knit group; they go back a long way. They are loyal and protective; they like him for who he is and don’t care that he’s an HRH. As one of them puts it, ‘He’s someone you’d like to have alongside you in the trenches.’

  ‘I think it’s a complete misconception,’ the Duke of Edinburgh once said, ‘to imagine that the monarchy exists in the interests of the monarch. It doesn’t. It exists in the interests of the people.’ William would like nothing more than to be an ordinary man. As a teenager, he wanted to be a gamekeeper. Now, between Royal duties, he’s flying search and rescue helicopters, which he loves, and living with Kate in a small farmhouse in Wales. They have no staff, and in his ideal world there would be no palaces or motorcades. But he was born to do this job, and sooner or later, in the interests of the people, he will give up his personal preferences and do it full time.

  He has strong views about the way he will do it. Monarchy must constantly evolve to remain relevant and his ideas imply no criticism of his grandmother, they are merely a reflection of today’s world. He does nothing unless he is convinced it is worthwhile; he is not a celebrity putting in appearances for the sake of publicity, and one of his greatest concerns is that he will be confused with one. Many years ago, emotionally drained by a visit to a premature baby unit at the hospital where he was born, he turned to his Private Secretary and said, ‘I have no idea why people want to talk to me but as long as they do, and it seems to make them happier, then let’s please do more.’

  A recent survey said Prince William was the most influential man in the world after President Obama. His stock could not be higher, but people in Britain have a short shelf-life; prime ministers don’t last more than a few years before the public wants a change. We have a culture that values youth over age. His challenge will be to find a way of changing that, of bypassing celebrity and maintaining a clear focus on his objectives, and of sustaining public interest for the rest of his life – without forfeiting his soul.

  BEGINNINGS

  There had been months of speculation in the press about where Diana’s first baby would be born. According to the tabloids, she and the Queen were locked in argument; the Princess of Wales wanted to have her baby in hospital but the Queen insisted the heir to the throne should be born at Buckingham Palace, where her own four children had been delivered.

  Like so many royal stories over the years it was not quite true. Diana was under the care of Mr George Pinker, the Queen’s Surgeon-Gynaecologist – better known to the young mothers of west London as one of the senior consultants at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. A delightful man, he’d been delivering babies there for twenty-four years, including those of the Duchess of Gloucester, Princess Michael of Kent and Princess Anne. There was never any doubt – or disagreement – about where this baby would be born. It would be delivered in the safety of a private room on the fourth floor of the Lindo Wing, with everything on hand in case of emergency.

  So Prince William, who came into the world at three minutes past nine on the evening of Monday 21 June 1982, was the first direct heir to the throne to be born in a hospital. It was the first of many firsts for the healthy, 7 lb 1½ oz little boy, who genealogists declared would be the most British monarch since James I and the most English since Elizabeth I. He was 39 per cent English, 16 per cent Scottish, 6.25 per cent Irish and 6.25 per cent American. The remaining 32.5 per cent was German. To his parents he was quite simply the best thing that had ever happened to them.

  When news reached the wider world that Diana had been taken to St Mary’s at five o’clock that morning, people flocked to the hospital, clutching Union Jacks and picnics, and set up camp in the street outside, just as they had for the wedding almost exactly a year before. Undaunted by the pouring rain they waited excitedly, transistor radios on, bottles of bubbly at the ready, and when news of the birth finally came, the cry went up: ‘It’s a boy! It’s a boy!’ Corks popped, to cheers and roars of delight and stirring rounds of ‘For she’s a jolly good fellow’ and ‘Rule Britannia’.

  Heading home to Kensington Palace a couple of hours later, Charles was greeted by about five hundred well-wishers and a host of journalists. He looked exhausted but flushed with excitement and pride. He had been with Diana throughout and would later tell friends about the thrill of seeing his son born, and what a life-changing experience it had been. ‘I’m obviously relieved and delighted,’ he said as the cameras flashed. ‘Sixteen hours is a long time to wait.’ And then, in typically philosophical mode, he added, ‘It’s rather a grown-up thing, I find – rather a shock to the system.’ ‘How was the baby?’ someone asked. ‘He looks marvellous; fair, sort of blondish. He’s not bad.’ When asked if he looked like his father, he added, ‘It has the good fortune not to.’ As for names, he said, ‘We’ve thought of one or two but there’s a bit of an argument about it. We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  There were no crowd barriers outside the Lindo Wing and as people pushed in on Charles, the better to hear his answers, a woman suddenly lunged forward, flung her arms around the new father and kissed him firmly on the cheek, leaving a smudge of bright red lipstick. ‘Bloody
hell,’ said the Prince with a wry smile, ‘Give us a chance!’ The crowd loved it and burst into song, like football supporters: ‘Nice one Charlie. Give us another one!’

  As he slipped into a waiting car he appealed for quiet so that mother and baby could get some well-deserved rest. They had not been disturbed at all; their room on the fourth floor faced the opposite way. It was the other new mothers in the wing whose rooms overlooked the road he was concerned about.

  Crowds had also gathered outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, where a self-appointed town crier was hoping to be heard above the noise of car horns and general merriment. At 10.25 p.m., in traditional style, the official announcement was posted on the gates. ‘Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales was today safely delivered of a son at 9.03 p.m. Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well.’ It was signed by Dr John Batten, head of the Queen’s Medical Household, Dr Clive Roberts, the anaesthetist, Dr David Harvey, the royal paediatrician, and Mr George Pinker.

  The proud father was back the next morning at 8.45 a.m., by which time the police had brought in barriers to keep the enthusiasm less physical. Frances Shand Kydd, Diana’s mother, and her elder sister Lady Jane Fellowes, arrived about half an hour later. They left full of excitement. ‘My grandson is everything his father said last night,’ said Mrs Shand Kydd. ‘He’s a lovely baby. The Princess looked radiant, absolutely radiant. There’s a lot of happiness up there.’ The Queen was the next visitor. She arrived clutching a small present shortly before eleven o’clock and left twenty minutes later looking jubilant. The last familiar face to arrive was that of Earl Spencer, Diana’s father, who had survived a massive brain haemorrhage three years earlier and was universally admired for having valiantly walked his youngest daughter up the long aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral the previous July. He left the hospital repeating over and over, ‘He’s a lovely baby.’

  Charles commented that his son was ‘looking a bit more human this morning’. Diana was well and recovering her strength and the baby ‘was in excellent form too, thank goodness.’ They were in such good form that in the afternoon mother and ‘Baby Wales’ went home. Diana was looking flushed and a little fragile, but also radiant. It had been a normal birth, albeit induced, relatively pain-free, thanks to an epidural spinal injection, and the baby, wrapped in a white blanket for the journey home, was breast-feeding well. Charles was carrying him as they came through the doors of the hospital, but soon handed him carefully to his mother. They smiled for the cameras and crowds, said their goodbyes to the staff who had come to see them off, and were whisked away by a waiting car.