The dream is over - no fairy-tale wedding for Kate and Wills

By Anna Tomforde Apr 14, 2007, 11:32 GMT

Combo picture shows Prince William (L, on 15 June 2006 in London) and Kate Middleton (R, on 15 December 2006 in Sandhurst). Britain\'s Prince William has split from his longtime girlfriend Kate Middleton, the Sun newspaper reported on Saturday, 14 April 2007. EPA/GEOFF CADDICK / STR

London - It had been billed as the fairy-tale wedding that would be the envy of the world and help shore up fading enthusiasm for the monarchy.

But now it's off, the dream is over. Those who had already printed the tea towels and painted the china plates in anticipation of a royal wedding - perhaps as early as this year - will have to put them away for good.

The sudden end to the six-year relationship between Prince William, 24, and his girlfriend from university days, Kate Middleton, 25, has surprised even the most experienced royal watchers.

'It's a surprise, because it all seemed very stable and very steady,' said one.

The prospect of William, second in line to the throne, and the older son of the still revered Princess Diana, tying the knot with a pretty, down-to-earth woman from a middle-class home had excited the nation and secretly fuelled hopes that it would give the monarchy a new lease of life.

The immediate reason for the break-up, observers believe, could lie in the intense media focus on Middleton since she took up work in London as an accessories buyer for a leading fashion chain last year.

At university at St Andrew's, Scotland, where they met in 2001, she and William enjoyed a 'honeymoon period' free of press attention.

Middleton, who graduated in history of art, shared student accommodation with the prince and is credited with making him stay on at St Andrew's when he found the strains of academic life in the small Scottish seaside town too much.

But the spotlight has been on the couple ever since Kate attended the prince's passing-out parade at Sandhurst Military Academy last December.

On her 25th birthday earlier this year, Middleton was chased by photographers in a fashion William said reminded him of the 'hounding' of his mother, who died, pursued by paparazzi, in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Just two weeks ago, Middleton settled a harassment complaint against the Daily Mirror newspaper over a close-up photograph published by the paper.

Middleton, voted a 'natural beauty' in a magazine contest earlier this month, was being photographed going to work and even caught on camera as she put her rubbish out.

While she was enjoying royal protection when seen with William at Sandhurst, the Cheltenham horse race or skiing in the Alps, she had no such protection when being pursued on a normal working day.

A month ago William, having completed his officer training, moved further away from London to Dorset, south-west Britain, to train as an armoured troop commander at Bovington Camp.

The couple, it was reported, saw each other not more than once a week, and William was repeatedly spotted on nights out - in the company of girls - at pubs and bars in Bournemouth, a seaside town on the south coast.

'She is stuck in London while he is living in an officer's mess in Dorset. Kate feels hugely frustrated that their relationship just seems to be going backwards at a rate of knots,' a friend of the couple told the Sun newspaper.

'The relationship foundered outside in the real world,' a royal watcher said, adding that the prince's move to Dorset, about three hours drive from London, had 'a lot to do with the final stages' of the break-up.

While William had his long-term future in the military worked out, Kate was the 'woman waiting.'

But royal watchers report that William, particularly lately, had repeatedly stressed that he was 'not ready to get married' before reaching the age of 28 or even 30.

'My understanding is that William's feeling is he's too young to get married,' said Duncan Larcombe, the Sun's royal correspondent who broke the story of their split.

'The last person on earth who's going to be pressured by newspaper columnists and television chat shows to get married is Prince William,' he said.

Observers said William, who lost his mother when he was only 15, has been deeply marked by her tragic death and determined not to repeat the 'mistakes' that led to the spectacular collapse of her marriage to Prince Charles in the mid-1990s.

Diana was only 19 when she married her prince in a fairy-tale wedding at St Paul's Cathedral in London in July, 1981.

William, said royal watchers, had a fear of early wedlock 'only to end in disaster 10 years down the line.'