Queen Kate not meant to be
Sunday, April 15, 2007
KATE MIDDLETON, the daughter of self-made, middle-class entrepreneurs, went from friend to lover when living with Britain's future King, Prince William, at university.
But months of fevered speculation by royalty-obsessed tabloids over when one of the world's most eligible bachelors would tie the knot abruptly ended yesterday when the pair unexpectedly split up.
The Sun newspaper reported that the couple had reached an "amicable agreement" to separate while sources confirmed the split to the Press Association news agency.
William's Clarence House office refused to comment, saying it did not discuss the prince's private life, but royal sources did not deny the report, tacitly acknowledging it was true.
William and Kate shared a house as students at St Andrews University in Scotland. From there, romance blossomed.
"They were able to get to know each other quite uniquely they had four years together away from the royal circus," said royal biographer Penny Junor.
"They lived a normal kind of life. They started as friends which has to be the best recipe."
But the pressure of maintaining a romance before the ever inquisitive lenses of the paparazzi was a constant strain when Middleton moved down to London.
In a poignant echo of Princess Diana's courtship with heir to the throne Prince Charles, she was constantly hounded outside her London apartment by phalanxes of photographers.
But royal-watchers believed Middleton was better equipped to handle the media pressure than Diana, who divorced Charles in a bitter split and was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997. Paparazzi were pursuing her in a high-speed chase when she died.
Born on January 8, 1982, Kate is the eldest child of Michael and Carole Middleton, who became millionaires running Party Pieces, a mail order firm supplying party accessories.
The epitome of genteel Middle England, they live in a five-bedroom house in the heart of the countryside in the county of Berkshire.
Kate was educated at private schools, ending at co-educational Marlborough College where she was said to be a popular girl who excelled at sports like field hockey.
At St Andrews, she was famously photographed wearing sexy lingerie at a charity fashion show where an admiring Prince William paid for a front-row seat.
The couple shared a luxury farmhouse with two other housemates on the outskirts of the seaside town famed for its golf.
Romance was able to flower away from the unrelenting media spotlight that followed William's mother to her death.
But by April 2004, she was skiing with William, his father and his brother Harry on their annual trip to Switzerland, sending the paparazzi into a frenzy.
Clever, quiet, stylish and discreet, Middleton won favourable comments from royal watchers.
Tabloid rumours of an imminent engagement reached fever pitch in December 2006 when she attended the graduation at the elite Sandhurst military academy of William 2nd Lieutenant Wales who she said looked "so, so sexy" in his uniform.
Her family joined the royals for lunch afterwards, a sure sign that the House of Windsor was ready to admit this elegant commoner into the tight-knit ranks of "The Firm".
Royal biography Robert Lacey said: "Kate is a good, solid middle-class girl and there is every chance we are going to have our first middle-class queen since Anne Boleyn but maybe that is not such a good precedent."
Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry VIII. He accused her of treason and had her beheaded in the Tower of London in 1536.
But, as Hello Magazine correspondent Judy Wade concluded maybe Middleton "realised the awful burden she would have taken on. It's a life sentence marrying a royal". Reuters
But months of fevered speculation by royalty-obsessed tabloids over when one of the world's most eligible bachelors would tie the knot abruptly ended yesterday when the pair unexpectedly split up.
The Sun newspaper reported that the couple had reached an "amicable agreement" to separate while sources confirmed the split to the Press Association news agency.
William's Clarence House office refused to comment, saying it did not discuss the prince's private life, but royal sources did not deny the report, tacitly acknowledging it was true.
William and Kate shared a house as students at St Andrews University in Scotland. From there, romance blossomed.
"They were able to get to know each other quite uniquely they had four years together away from the royal circus," said royal biographer Penny Junor.
"They lived a normal kind of life. They started as friends which has to be the best recipe."
But the pressure of maintaining a romance before the ever inquisitive lenses of the paparazzi was a constant strain when Middleton moved down to London.
In a poignant echo of Princess Diana's courtship with heir to the throne Prince Charles, she was constantly hounded outside her London apartment by phalanxes of photographers.
But royal-watchers believed Middleton was better equipped to handle the media pressure than Diana, who divorced Charles in a bitter split and was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997. Paparazzi were pursuing her in a high-speed chase when she died.
Born on January 8, 1982, Kate is the eldest child of Michael and Carole Middleton, who became millionaires running Party Pieces, a mail order firm supplying party accessories.
The epitome of genteel Middle England, they live in a five-bedroom house in the heart of the countryside in the county of Berkshire.
Kate was educated at private schools, ending at co-educational Marlborough College where she was said to be a popular girl who excelled at sports like field hockey.
At St Andrews, she was famously photographed wearing sexy lingerie at a charity fashion show where an admiring Prince William paid for a front-row seat.
The couple shared a luxury farmhouse with two other housemates on the outskirts of the seaside town famed for its golf.
Romance was able to flower away from the unrelenting media spotlight that followed William's mother to her death.
But by April 2004, she was skiing with William, his father and his brother Harry on their annual trip to Switzerland, sending the paparazzi into a frenzy.
Clever, quiet, stylish and discreet, Middleton won favourable comments from royal watchers.
Tabloid rumours of an imminent engagement reached fever pitch in December 2006 when she attended the graduation at the elite Sandhurst military academy of William 2nd Lieutenant Wales who she said looked "so, so sexy" in his uniform.
Her family joined the royals for lunch afterwards, a sure sign that the House of Windsor was ready to admit this elegant commoner into the tight-knit ranks of "The Firm".
Royal biography Robert Lacey said: "Kate is a good, solid middle-class girl and there is every chance we are going to have our first middle-class queen since Anne Boleyn but maybe that is not such a good precedent."
Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry VIII. He accused her of treason and had her beheaded in the Tower of London in 1536.
But, as Hello Magazine correspondent Judy Wade concluded maybe Middleton "realised the awful burden she would have taken on. It's a life sentence marrying a royal". Reuters
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