When Prince William began life as an undergraduate at the University of St Andrew’s his pals were met with a pretty unusual request from the royal household that would help the future King have a ‘normal’ student experience
When Prince William enrolled at the University of St Andrews – where he would meet his future wife, then Kate Middleton, the eyes of the world were on him. The Prince of Wales was a teenage heartthrob status and this cemented him as one of the most popular members of the Royal Family.
However, it was not just an education that William hoped to gain from his time at the prestigious Scottish university, but also some time away from the bright spotlight he had grown up in, which had only intensified after the untimely death of his mother Princess Diana. A royal expert has claimed that there was an unusual request made of his friends and fellow students when he began his studies at university back in 2001, that would enable him to enjoy a “normal” student existence alongside the rest of his cohort, and it was something that would likely be a pretty abnormal aspect of freshers week.
The expert, royal author Katie Nicholl, made the claim on an episode of Vanity Fair’s Dynasty podcast back in 2022, which covered Kate and William’s early days of friendship that quickly turned to romance. St Andrews was a safe place for William to enjoy a love of relative normalcy even as the future King. However, this normality was facilitated through a request from the royal household to his fellow student pals – signing legal agreements, which meant they wouldn’t be able to discuss what William was getting up to as he adapted to student life.
Nicholl explained that it’s a “very strange concept to have to sign a confidentiality agreement, but of course, he was a future King and this whole idea was to enable him to have an ordinary existence, so his friends had to legally promise not to leak stories about his activities to the press, and as a result his experience was remarkably ordinary and very happy.”
William himself spoke in an interview as he approached the end of his studies about how much this normal life he had been allowed had meant to him, and how well the deal made with the media to leave him alone – for the most part – during his studies in exchange for some formal sit-downs had gone. “There’s lots of people saying it’s impossible to lead a normal life really but actually up here, and with the media out of it,” William said back in 2004. “It’s amazing how people just get on with their lives and will not bother you. Everyone up here, I have to say, has been as good as gold, I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
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