Prince William: a life in the public eye
Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales is the eldest son of Charles, Prince of Wales, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. As grandson of Queen Elizabeth II he is second in line to the throne behind his father.
Often called 'Wills', the 28-year-old popped the question to his long term girlfriend Catherine 'Kate' Middleton while on a holiday in Kenya in October 2010, which she has described as "very romantic".
Clarence House announced the couple’s engagement on 16 November amid intense media speculation and the pair has confirmed that they will marry on 29 April 2011.
A bit of a different royal upbringing
Despite the media mayhem that defined his mother's life and has surrounded him since his birth, William has grown into a refreshingly down-to-earth Prince.
At least part of this can be attributed to Diana’s – and also Charles' – determination for him and his brother Harry to grow up with as much normality as possible.
Wills was born on 21 June 1982 at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, West London, making him the first prince of the British Royal Family to be born in an actual hospital.
Nicknamed 'Wombat' by his parents, baby William was christened at Buckingham Palace by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie on 4 August 1982 – the Queen Mother's 82nd birthday.
Rather than being schooled from home like other royal children Diana sent Wills to Wetherby School where he could mix with others his own age. He stayed there until he was eight, when he moved to Ludgrove School in Berkshire in 1990, then went on to study at Eton from 1995.
Diana also took her two sons on regular trips to theme parks and McDonalds, as well as official visits to AIDS hospitals and shelters for the homeless - something she was known to be passionate about.
It has been reported that a seven-year-old William once told Diana he wanted to become a police officer when he grew up so that he could protect her, to which Harry replied, "Oh, no you can’t. You’ve got to be King".
As a schoolboy the Prince endured the very public collapse of his parents' marriage followed by the tragic death of his mother in a car crash in Paris, guaranteeing his life would forever be the subject of intense tabloid fascination.
Diana was known as the 'Queen of People’s Hearts', and the image of young Princes William and Harry following Diana’s hearse along with their uncle, father and grandfather at her 1997 funeral at Westminster Abbey is famous worldwide.
Prince Charles then moved with the boys into the country estate of Highgrove House near the picturesque village of Tetbury in the Cotswolds countryside - defying generations of tradition of raising the royal children in London.
To further counter the media pressure, Prince Charles struck a deal with the press while William and Harry were at school whereby they were left alone in return for limited access at press and photo calls.
This agreement would last until the end of William's degree at St Andrew's University, during which time he met his fiance Kate and the pair’s relationship was able to blossom out of the public eye – at least to start with.
As soon as the couple left university the paparazzi’s level of focus on the romance rose to soap opera proportions.
Feet firmly on the ground
After graduating from Eton in 2000, having passed A-level exams in history, biology and geography, William took a gap year before starting university in order to travel and participate in army training in Belize.
What Wills saw as a chance to experience the world also became an accidental public relations victory - photos of him performing manual labour and cleaning toilets in a remote region of southern Chile were broadcast around the globe during his time volunteering as part of a 10-week charity expedition.
During his gap year the Prince also visited Mauritius, worked as a labourer on a dairy farm in southwest England and spent time in Africa, which he calls "my second home".
Studying art history before switching to geography after his first year, William – enrolled under the name William Wales and had a pretty regular university life in the privacy of an off-campus cottage, which he shared with Kate and two other friends.
He even had the chance to dabble in some surfing with friends at a beach near St Andrews although he confessed he was not familiar with surfing etiquette and would often 'steal' other people’s waves. William enjoyed the anonymity of the sport, saying, "There's no noise. It's just you breathing. You're in a different world with the fish."
Planes, campaigns and royal duties
William finished university in 2005 with a Master's degree with second level honours, which makes him one of the most academically successful royals in history. As well as his mother tongue he is fluent in French and also speaks some Welsh.
Soon after he decided to undertake some work experience and joined a programme to learn land management at Chatsworth House before doing a financial planning internship at HSBC.
But the lure of the military saw him follow in younger brother Harry's footsteps, and that same year he enrolled at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst for officer training.
Graduating as an officer in the Household Cavalry's Blues and Royals in 2006, the Prince later learnt to fly with the Royal Air Force and patrolled the Caribbean Sea with the Royal Navy in 2008.
Flight Lieutenant William also graduated as an RAF search and rescue pilot in September 2006, after a grueling 19-month programme, and will continue to serve for the next three years on the Welsh island of Anglesey.
During his time at Sandhurst the Prince also undertook his first solo royal engagements. Having been appointed as a Counsellor of the State at the age of 21, he began his first royal duties on behalf of the Queen while she was abroad to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Nigeria in 2003.
He carried out his first official overseas tour in 2010 to New Zealand and Australia on behalf of the Queen, where tabloids affectionately labeled him "Willy the Wombat" and expressed concern over whether the sun would be too harsh on his bald spot.
William had already been Down Under once before, having travelled abroad for the first time to Australia and New Zealand at the tender age of one. Diana’s decision to take him along was seen as unconventional, yet he continued to accompany the Prince and Princess on subsequent tours until he was old enough to go them alone.
Along with performing his first royal duties, the Prince has also been involved in various campaigns, including appearing in a film with Harry for the Prince Charles Save the Rainforest Campaign.
Wills is also a keen footballer, polo player, and swimmer, and headed up the Diamond Jubilee campaign to safeguard 2012 public playing fields as part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
He later became President of the English Football Association in 2006, and in 2010 he went to Zurich, Switzerland, to push for England’s bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, joining Prime Minister David Cameron and footballer David Beckham.
Following in Diana's footsteps
Many similarities have been drawn between the Prince and his late mother, including that of their shared passion for charity and humanitarian work.
In September 2005, Prince William took on his first patronage with homelessness charity Centrepoint, of which Diana had also been Patron. It was with Centrepoint that he slept overnight on a cardboard box in London with a group of young homeless people to highlight the issue in the run-up to Christmas.
He is also Patron of the Tusk Trust, a UK-based conservation charity which aims to secure a peaceful co-existence for Africa's wildlife and people. In June 2010 William visited Botswana with Prince Harry on their first joint overseas tour, where they visited an Education Centre on the Mokolodi Nature Reserve to engage with children.
While in Botswana, William said: "My mother instilled into Harry and me from a very early age that being grounded was very important, because you can get wrapped up in your world. If you're not grounded, then you'll never really know what's going on. You might claim you do, but you don’t ever actually feel it or understand it.
"I’ve really tried to keep that going, and I know Harry has as well. We’re very laid back anyway. We don't want to be mollycoddled. We don't want to be kept away from everything. We want to see the real stuff. We want to do the real stuff."
Why we like him
We can relate to William because he's normal. Well, about as normal as any royal can get. We do know that he shops, cooks and cleans when he and Kate are staying at his Anglesey cottage in Wales. And the pair has announced that they have no intention of taking on butlers or household staff when they return to live at the cottage as newlyweds, where William will spend the next three years fulfilling his RAF duties.
Also, he's spiffingly attractive, which would swing in favour of those anti-republicans out there. In an era obsessed with looks, the tall, blond cavalry officer Prince could quite possibly save the floundering dynasty partly through sheer sex appeal.
