06.22.08 - Added pictures of William, Harry, and Kate watching polo and trying to build a tent on William's birthday (6.21.08) and pictures of William and Harry playing polo today while Chelsy and Kate watched. 06.20.08 - We have a new email address - teamhighgrove@gmail.com. Please use this email from now on. Please resend any emails sent in the last couple days. 06.18.08 - Photos of Harry attending a ceremony for the fallen troops of Afghanistan during his tour there. 06.16.08 - Photos of William, Harry, and Kate attending the Order of the Garter Ceremony for Wills. 06.14.08 - Photos of the royals attending Trooping of the Colour.
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The 6-year-old boy with a cap of soft brown hair and a grin that could melt Stonehenge had climbed to the top of a 30-foot-high playground slide, but he wasn't quite ready to take the plunge. Something was missing; he didn't have an audience. ''Papa, Papa,'' he called down excitedly. ''Watch me, watch me.'' Below, his doting father, wearing a gray herringbone coat, looked up proudly and smiled. ''Go on, then. I'm watching.''
Prince Charles wasn't the only one watching the little boy at the top of the slide. William Arthur Phillip Louis--the boy born to be king--had the whole world looking on. He had been raised by Charles and Diana in as normal a manner as possible. But as Willie the Wombat--his dad's old moniker for him--grew older he began to understand that he was anything but a normal child. Normal children, after all, didn't have cameras trained on them at every turn. Normal children didn't have articles written about them. Normal children didn't get a department store like Harrods all to themselves to do their Christmas shopping.
Once known as the Prince of Wails (particularly when he didn't get his way), Wills, as his mother called him, began slowly shedding his willful image and turning into a little charmer, gradually adapting to the knowledge that he had a big future in store. ''William knows he's special,'' said a recent visitor to the family's country estate at Highgrove in Gloucestershire. ''He's incredibly confident for a little boy his age. It's a bit like talking to another adult.''
Adult was not the word that would have sprung to mind when describing William as a young child. He was known by the British press as the Basher. Former generations of royal progeny had been ready for formal appearances by age 3. Not so for Wills, who even at 4 and 5 was rarely trusted to behave in public. His first major gig--page boy at his Prince Andrew's 1986 wedding to Sarah Ferguson--didn't exactly provide evidence that here was a kid with the regal stuff. He fidgeted, squirmed and whispered all through the ceremony. He even managed to pick a mite-size fight with a flower girl. Other royal horror stories included setting off security alarms and trying to flush his father's handmade shoes down the toilet. Three sets of parents at Wetherby considered pulling their boys out after Wills had a scrape with two of them and threw a chair at a third. He also reportedly began a brouhaha at a friend's birthday party in a dispute over the menu. ''He screamed that he hated the food--sandwiches, jell-o, and ice cream--and threw it around the room,'' claimed a nanny who witnessed the scene. When another nanny tried to get him to clean up the mess, he reportedly said, ''Do you know who I am?'' before sulkily cleaning up and clearing out in disgrace.
Happily, Wills became a changed child. Some in the family credit his transformation to his stern Ruth Wallace; others say he simply matured. All agreed that the days of
Wills' king-size tantrums appeared to be over and even if he did sometimes type 'naughty' words like wee and bottom (which he spelled botem) onto the computer screen at his exclusive pre-prep school, Wetherby, what young boy, royal or otherwise, would have been incapable of that?
Clearly, his parents did something right, since William at around six and seven was already showing qualities of leadership. He'd even showed an instinctive flair for one of its perks: ordering people around. "Prince William can be a really bossy-boots," said the mother of one of his classmates. "I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. But he is a natural leader and likes to take command. He likes to organize games of tag that can get quite boisterous."
William served as a page boy at the wedding of Diana's cousin Edward Barry. Perhaps because he considered himself an old hand at the job--remember Fergie's wedding--he began barking commands to the other five page boys, among them Harry, and the four tiny, utterly awestruck bridesmaids. "Get back! Get in line!" William shouted to his short subjects as they all waited outside the church.
While learning the rudiments of statesmanship, William began acquiring another kingly skill: horsemanship. He competed in his first horse at six, won a rosette as the third-best young rider at his level and then won another rosette for best-turned-out rider a short time later. He saddled up nearly every weekend at Highgrove on his favorite pony, Trigger. And at his weekly teas with the Queen, the chatter almost always centered on ponies.
Her Majesty could attest to his equestrian skills. Charles and Wills had just wrapped up a riding lesson when they trotted past Elizabeth leaving the Balmoral Castle stables on her favorite horse, a bay called Greenshield. "Where are you going, Granny?" called William, mounted on Trigger. "Can I come with you?" According to an observer, Elizabeth turned and beckoned to her grandson. Later at a picnic lunch, she laughed as she told everyone, "William trotted along so fast on his pony I could barely keep up. I thought the bay would pitch me head first into the road at any minute."
Wills' academic performance, on the other hand, was not quite on par with his horsemanship when he was younger. At Wetherby's he was in the less-advanced group, the class known as form Three Red. However, William would prove to be perhaps the "smartest" royal ever later on. At least Wetherby taught its most celebrated pupil one thing -- how to write a creditable letter When his folks went off to the Arab Emirates, there was a surprise message waiting for them in a suitcase: a carefully penned note from their No. 1 son. "Dear Mummy and Papa," it read. "I hope you have a lovely time on your tour. But come home soon. I miss you. Lots of love, William." Two kisses adorned the bottom of the epistle. "The princess was so touched by her son's letter," said Sheikha Mariem, one of Diana's hostesses on the state visit. "She said it was the first one he had ever written to his parents."
He, however, eventually had to go through a phase few people experience, a period of recognizing that he has been set apart by destiny. "I can't pinpoint any particular moment," Charles said of his own realization. "I didn't suddenly wake up in my pram and say, 'Yippee.' I think it just dawns on you slowly, that people are interested, and slowly you get the idea that you have a certain duty and responsibility." At an early age, William realized it as well.
Compiled from several newspaper and magazines articles.
