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The laughing young woman sitting in the back of the Range Rover did not look as if she had lost the Crown.
Kate Middleton was with her parents yesterday at their £1 million ($2.7 million) home, set amid dense woodland, grazing sheep and rolling fields in the village of Bucklebury in Berkshire, west of London. She did not intend to allow the gathering of journalists, photographers and TV crews to ruin her day in the sunshine.
Kate, whose fairytale wedding and potential role in the life of the royals has been written about as if a matter of destiny, woke up yesterday to a much more recognisable fate: that of an ordinary middle-class woman whose university romance with Prince William has left her nursing a broken heart. Like Alice in Wonderland, she must return to normality. But not yet.
The papers brought an avalanche of minutiae about how the young woman praised for her English Rose ordinariness and hailed as "the next People's Princess" lost the heart of the future King. Record sums are likely to be offered her and her friends for what has been called "the biggest kiss 'n' tell in history".
Her next boyfriend can expect paparazzi on his doorstep, but it is William's next love affair that will provide the greatest excitement.
Sources have told me news of her is likely to break sooner rather than later. "He broke up with Kate because he's met someone else who's turned his head," one said. "She's from a decent background but is very naughty and he finds her much more exciting."
The Mail on Sunday claimed that Kate had feared the Prince's friendship with blond socialite Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe. The paper said William has had an infatuation with the 24-year-old heiress.
To the surprise of royal commentators, the break-up of William, 24, and 25-year-old Kate was revealed in the Sun newspaper on Saturday and not denied by Clarence House, Prince Charles' - and hence his son William's - London residence. The paper said their relationship had been on a downward spiral since Kate watched William passing out from Sandhurst last December. He started his training as an armoured troop commander in Dorset on March 16, since when they have seen each other no more than once a week.
The Sun quoted a close friend as saying: "As far as Kate is concerned, William simply hasn't been paying her enough attention. She is stuck in London while he is living in an officers' mess in Dorset. Kate feels hugely frustrated that their relationship just seems to be going backwards at a rate of knots."
Just over a fortnight ago, the Prince partied with a blond student at his barracks and was later described by her as a "perfect gentleman". He was also pictured with his arm around an 18-year-old Brazilian student amid claims he had cupped her breast in the photo. Such antics have been previously more closely associated with his brother, Harry.
A friend of Kate said: "The last fortnight has been stressful. She was upset about a story that appeared in one of the newspaper diaries and phoned round all her friends trying to find out who planted it, which is out of character for her. I think the end of the relationship was ... a mutual decision, but obviously she's very upset."
Kate left her flat in west London to lie low with her parents, Michael and Carole, in Bucklebury. Inevitably the house was under siege by reporters yesterday, prompting her lawyers to issue a warning that further intrusions into the family's privacy would be viewed as harassment.
Max Clifford, a leading public relations consultant, said: "I've had editors calling and telling me they'll pay more than anyone else. I'd be absolutely astonished if she did kiss 'n' tell but there will be plenty of others close to her who will. I've already been approached by three so-called close friends of hers."
Kate has been hailed as a fashion icon and the simple black and white patterned Top Shop dress she wore to work on her 25th birthday sold out. But she has endured intense media scrutiny and recently made her first official complaint about harassment to the Press Complaints Commission over an image of her that appeared in the Daily Mirror, settling the matter after the paper apologised.
On her birthday in January, she faced a media scrum outside her London flat on her way to work and her lawyers said she was being followed on a daily basis. She will now be left without the security she enjoyed when out on the town with the second-in-line to the throne and his accompanying detectives.
There were warnings yesterday that Kate, who met William when both were students at St Andrews University, will face a tough time as the old flame of a prince. Rosie Boycott, the former Daily Express editor and a champion of Princess Diana, said: "Like Prince Charles' ex-girlfriends, it will follow her for the rest of her life. The same pictures will always be rolled out: 'The girls who were almost Queen."'
Comparisons with Diana, Princess of Wales have dogged Kate from the beginning, and Boycott said the Prince's next girlfriend would find it no easier: "Diana casts a huge shadow. The media want another Diana because there was nobody in the world who sold so many magazines. It's difficult for William to know he's metthe right person because there's so much more to it than falling in love. If you live in that spotlight it's hard toknow if something is true."
And Penny Junor, a biographer of Prince Charles, added: "Kate has been under the most incredible pressure ... and I wouldn't be surprised if she found it too much. No matter what class you are, marrying into the royal family and the life they lead is utterly different.
"William will be doubly cautious because of what happened to his parents and how unhappy everyone was, and the damage it did to the monarchy and his family. He's very determined to get it right and it seems that when he felt uncomfortable he spoke up."
Charles may be hoping that William follows his own example by staying friends with his ex.
At Cambridge, Charles enjoyed his own university romance with Lucia Santa Cruz, the daughter of the Chilean Ambassador to London, who was seen as his first "proper" girlfriend. The romance survived only a few months but matured into a lasting friendship and Lucia asked him to be godfather to her first child. It was also Lucia, now one of Chile's most renowned society hostesses, who in 1971 introduced Charles to his future wife Camilla, saying she had found "just the girl" for him.
But Christopher Wilson, a royal biographer, accused Charles of failing to nurture his son's relationship. "One of the fundamental problems is that the Prince of Wales has done nothing to move this situation forward and has been content to let the royal machine do it. They've thought, 'This is an ace up our sleeve.' Charles does love his sons but he doesn't mentor them."
Kate's status as a "commoner" was also seen a PR coup for the royals in their attempt to modernise. Wilson, who has traced Kate's family tree back 200 years to ancestors who survived coalmining, malnutrition and a cholera epidemic in northeast England, said he believed William's choice of career was ultimately responsible for robbing the monarchy of a great asset.
"William has been ensconced in the laddish culture of the cavalry and officers are particularly laddish. They take a lighthearted approach to the opposite sex. The most important thing is bonding with men because you might need them under fire, whereas women are seen as adornments and people to have sex with. I think this is the attitude William has been led into.
"This will damage the royal family because William won't be able to forge another relationship with a person who's so forceful and useful to them. She is an achiever in her own right, not a clothes-horse like Diana. She saved William's bacon at university when he was floundering in his first year. She said, 'Don't quit,' and he owes her that."
Fans of William who have been expecting a royal wedding will have to wait. Harry is now favourite to get engaged first. William once declared he did not want to marry until he was 28 or 30. He might also bear in mind a note sent to his father by Earl Mountbatten in 1974: "I believe in a case like yours a man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as possible before settling down."
Among the consequences of the break-up is that Woolworths' range of Wills-and-Kate mugs and plates will now never see the light of day. But a spokeswoman insisted: "We didn't have anything made; we only had designs mocked up. Luckily, there's no warehouse of useless china sitting somewhere."
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