Prince William (32 page)

David had met Kate only a couple of times, and then because he'd worried she might be adversely affected by all the fuss that was going on. ‘When she was with William at that stage, she seemed to be very much a practical guide to him. If I would say, “Look William, we'll do it this way,” William would say, “Ooooohhh,” and Kate would say, “That's right, do that,” and it would be done in that way. It was an extraordinarily down-to-earth approach. Those stories in the media breaking over his head compound my notion that he was dealing with it at a distance with the people he trusted.'

Like all the academic staff at St Andrews, David noticed a ‘tremendous growth in maturity' in William during the four years, as there is with most students. ‘I saw a degree of greater relaxation. He had a tendency in earlier years if there was something to be discussed or agreed, a practical arrangement or whatever, to say, “Oh I'll think about it.” He gradually became more decisive. And he was coming forward and saying things. I think he had always been forthright with the Palace, he told them what he wanted, but he wasn't with us. “I'll fit in with the university” was the general thing. But he had decided views; he became more his own person.

‘He had an extraordinarily strong bond with his father. I probably didn't know about it at the beginning. Charles and I could not be more different and again we had a rather knockabout relationship. When we got to graduation, I was wearing academic dress; he introduced me to the Queen and said, “This is the first time David's ever dressed up to tell me what to do.” Charles had had such a different university experience, he had virtually taken the Court to Cambridge – it hadn't been a normal student experience. He didn't quite get universities and William was the person who was going home and telling him what it was like. There was immense fondness between the two of them.

‘It was one of the first times Camilla was meeting the Queen in her new married role, and I remember Camilla being more nervous than I was about what she should do when the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh arrived because there was a degree of protocol about the graduation that was very odd. We did not want it to be a formal visit because that would have messed it up for every other parent sitting there, but the only way to prevent it being a formal visit was for Charles to go to the door and say “Welcome, mother” and take her in. So Charles and Camilla had to arrive early, stand on the steps of the graduation hall with nonentities like myself and say, “Come in.” Then it could be done like any other parent or grandparent going to graduation.'

William's university career had been a resounding success. He had enjoyed more freedom than he would ever have again, he had met his future wife and he had been awarded a respectable 2:1 degree. Before driving away for a family meal, William warmly greeted the crowds who had gathered around the Younger Hall to thank them and everyone in the community – including the local Fife police – who had helped to make his time at St Andrews so enjoyable, saying that he was ‘sad to leave. I have been able to lead as normal a student life as I could have hoped for and I'm very grateful to everyone, particularly the locals, who have helped make this happen.'

And while William Wales, MA Hons, set off to the other side of the world to meet the British and Irish Lions on their tour of New Zealand, the university heaved an enormous and collective sigh of relief that nothing disastrous had happened on their patch, and held a large party to celebrate. David Corner was not the only one who had had misgivings at the outset. ‘I and others had worked incredibly hard for fifteen years to get St Andrews fourth in the UK research tables, from thirty-seventh to fourth, and we were now very good at science, not just medieval history, and I didn't want the image to come back of posh people in red gowns walking along the pier. But he did us no harm in that respect at all.'

HIS FATHER'S WITNESS

More than thirty years after he first fell in love with her, the Prince of Wales finally married Camilla Parker Bowles on 9 April 2005 in the Guildhall at Windsor. The Queen had taken a long time to come round to giving her consent. The relationship had, after all, practically brought the monarchy to its knees, and while she had no personal animosity towards Camilla, had the earth mysteriously swallowed her up, she would have been delighted. Life would have been very much easier for everyone. But Charles, normally duty personified, had insisted that Camilla was ‘non-negotiable'. He loved her and he needed her and as everyone who has known him any length of time will say, he is a different man now that he is married to her – happy, relaxed, utterly transformed.

But it was never going to be a straightforward affair. As one of his Household says, ‘Their marriage was a matter of huge constitutional and political importance and you had to court the approval of the Queen, Number Ten, the Archbishop of Canterbury and arguably a few others besides.' Top of the list of the ‘others besides' were William and Harry; and concern for their feelings was one of the principal reasons why, even after the Queen was on side, the Prince had taken so long to make Camilla his wife. Mark Bolland had worked so tirelessly (if dangerously) during his six years with the Prince of Wales to make their marriage acceptable to the British public, that large sections of them were baying for him to make an honest woman of Camilla after all these years.

The boys had been unashamedly used as part of the process. William's first meeting with Camilla in 1998, which was leaked to
the press, did her popularity no harm whatsoever. The meeting was known to have been amicable, and Harry's meeting with her some months later was known to have gone equally well. They had both been on sparkling form at Charles's fiftieth birthday party at Highgrove, and it was known they had invited Camilla.

The next move was for Charles and Camilla to be seen in public together. For years they had engaged in tedious subterfuge to foil the paparazzi, never travelling in the same car (unless Camilla was hidden under a blanket), never arriving through the same door and never being together unless they were certain the location was safe. So in January 1999, when Camilla's sister Annabel Elliot was having a fiftieth birthday party at the Ritz Hotel in London, Mark masterminded a plan to thwart the paparazzi and test public opinion.

The media were briefed that the couple might be leaving the party that evening together, and during the course of the day the pavement outside the Ritz filled several lines deep with photographers and film crews jostling for position. As predicted, they emerged shortly before midnight through the revolving doors and, without stopping, walked the few steps to their waiting car, Charles holding a guiding hand behind Camilla. It was the picture they had been avoiding for thirteen years, but terrified though they had both been, it brought an end to all the pretence. They were able to behave like a couple thereafter and because all the media had that first shot, the value of it fell through the floor. And to their great relief, the majority of the British public scarcely turned a hair.

Ian Jones was there that night. ‘It was a pivotal moment because from then on they could do things together. When that happened the biggest and most noticeable factor was the closeness of Charles and Camilla as a unit and how happy they were and how good they were together.'

What was needed next was for William to be seen in public with Camilla, and this was another clever piece of engineering. The occasion was a party to mark the tenth anniversary of the PCC (run by Mark's partner, Guy Black) at Somerset House in February 2001. It was billed as William's first official engagement,
during which he wanted to express his thanks to the media for having allowed him to enjoy his time at Eton unmolested, and appeal to them to allow him the same privacy during his time at St Andrews. The unstated aim was to have Charles, William and Camilla – who arrived and left separately – together in the same room, with every editor in Fleet Street there to witness it.

As one of those involved says, ‘Part of the thinking was that in order for the public to approve of Camilla she had to be seen with the boys or it wouldn't work. I think the relationship between them all is warm now but if I'm honest, it wasn't then. I think they found it hard when they were little. I remember Harry being uncomfortable and saying something awkward. It was difficult for them; it was a natural thing. You want your mum, you don't want her, and she had her own family. To be fair to Camilla, she never tried to be mummy but she was the “other woman” and she was there and taking daddy's time. It wasn't all happy families for quite a long time, but William was happy to see his father happy.'

Camilla was sensitive; as a mother herself she entirely understood the need to go at their pace. After that first meeting she started to stay over at York House when William and Harry were in London, but whenever they were at Highgrove, the house in which Diana had at one time lived, she would drive home to her house in Laycock after dinner. Neither she nor the Prince wanted to foist a stepmother on the boys before they had fully grown up and were ready to accept her into their lives.

Their next public get-together included Harry, the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and twenty-five of the younger members of the Royal Family – and there were rather more than a bunch of Fleet Street editors to witness it. It was the Party at the Palace, in June 2002, the biggest and most revolutionary of all the Queen's Golden Jubilee events. For the first time, the gardens at Buckingham Palace were opened up to ordinary members of the public, twelve thousand of them who won their tickets in a ballot, for a star-studded evening of rock and pop. A million people watched on giant screens in the Mall and Green Park, and a further two hundred
million watched it on television worldwide. It began with Brian May of the band Queen standing on the roof belting out the National Anthem at goodness knows how many decibels, and ended with a spectacular pyrotechnic display and a tribute from Prince Charles to his mother, which to deafening cheers began, ‘Your Majesty … Mummy …'

The Prince's popularity rating was riding high. At the time of Diana's death it had plunged to 20 per cent; by 2002, largely because William and Harry had turned out so well, he was credited with being a good parent, and it was up to 75 per cent. They could have married. There would always have been some people unable to stomach it, but most of the public would have been supportive – as they were when they finally did marry three years later.

The reticence was over William and Harry, whose allegiance was inevitably torn. They had loved their mother and known that she had been tormented by the woman she saw as her rival. William had watched the
Panorama
programme and, whatever his feelings about it, Camilla had been the villain in that. Equally, they could see that their father was lonely and that this woman lit up his life; that he was good fun to be with when she was around, and sank easily into gloom and despondency when she was not. And both of them were old enough to know that nothing was as black and white as it had seemed when they were children.

Colleen still feels for them. She believes they have had a tough time although there have been some exceptional and supportive characters along the way who have all played a part in helping them through those tough times. In particular, she sites Sandy Henney, who played a slightly maternal role for a while (as she herself did); Tiggy, who was always there for them; Mark Dyer, who, if a bit hair-brained at times, was a true friend to them and being slightly older provided a useful steer. Edward van Cutsem was also valuable; and Andrew Gailey played a very important part. Then there was the Prince of Wales; and not least of all the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, who she has no doubt have privately given William a lot of support and a lot of counsel.

‘But at the end of the day there's no substitute for mum and it's been very, very hard and then to have another woman thrust into it, and all in the public eye. It's great that they have turned out the way they have but they've had a lot of love around them and a lot of support from the staff as well. And their mum did love them and that has stood them in very good stead.'

By the time it came to the wedding, both boys had put their own feelings to one side and were simply delighted for their father. They released a joint statement saying, ‘We are both very happy for our father and Camilla, and we wish them all the luck in the future.' The news of their engagement, however, leaked and Robert Jobson, then writing for the
London Evening Standard
, had the story that earned him the Scoop of the Year award. ‘We were planning it,' says a member of the Household. ‘The circle of knowledge was having to widen each week almost, as we made more plans. We had a target date for announcing it. I said to Michael [Peat], “There's no way this is going to hold, we'll have a large glass of champagne if we can hold it, but we won't, so I will devise a media plan for every single day between now and then, so if it leaks on that day, we're ready to go. And bless him, Robert Jobson broke it on the one day [in February 2005] that was the best day of the whole three weeks. The Thursday – the Prince was going to visit Goldsmiths in the City, and there was a charity ball that night at Windsor Castle; they were both going to be dressed up in their finest. It was a complete coincidence. Perfect for us. Imagine if it had been a day when they weren't going to be out and about or seen together.'

After a multitude of obstacles along the way, including postponement for a day because the original date clashed with the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Rome, and arguments about whether it was right or wrong for the country, good or bad for the boys, what kind of service it should be, whether Camilla should be called HRH The Duchess of Cornwall or something more low key, and what the Princess of Wales would have thought, the marriage finally happened. The unknown quantity was whether the public would
turn out. I happened to be there that day. I had been asked to commentate by various television companies and when I arrived in Windsor at 5.30 in the morning, there was just one brave family who had camped outside the Guildhall all night. I couldn't help thinking about the hundreds who had camped for days along the route to St Paul's twenty-four years before. By 10.00 there was still only a smattering and it looked as though the overriding emotion of the day was going to be overwhelming indifference. But half an hour later the street was suddenly filled to bursting. People of every age chatted excitedly to strangers, hemmed in behind police barriers, all but a few of them delighted that Charles would finally take the plunge and wed the woman he had loved for over thirty years.