“If you find someone you love in life, you must hang on to it and look after it,” Princess Diana once said. It’s a sentiment her son Prince William has followed, despite briefly letting his college sweetheart go. Three years after going public with their romance, the Prince and Princess of Wales famously split in the days after the 2007 Cheltenham Festival.
By then, King Charles’ older son and Catherine Middleton had been out of the University of St Andrews for nearly two years. In the book William & Catherine: The Intimate Inside Story, author Russell Myers wrote that Catherine, who was 25 at the time, wanted a commitment and gave her then-royal boyfriend “an ultimatum.” After William laid “out his reasons for believing they were on ‘different pages'” and saying “he could not offer her a guarantee of marriage,” the couple “agreed to give each other the space they needed.”
Following the split, the heir to the throne is said to have told one courtier: “At least she is free.” While she was described as “understandably devastated,” Catherine didn’t stay home waiting for William. Instead, she hit the town, going out with friends and her younger sister, Pippa Middleton.
William, then 24, was said to be “completely broken” and “more than just crestfallen and worried about whether he was throwing away the one constant in his life.”
Russell noted in his book that the couple’s “breakdown was not caused by infidelity, confrontation or embitterment, but rather was the result of two young people navigating their first serious relationship at the same time as being thrust into a spotlight whose power had been magnified beyond comprehension.”
The couple had met as students in Scotland. Both William and Catherine enrolled at the University of St Andrews in 2001 and graduated from the higher education establishment on June 23, 2005.
William had second thoughts
According to the author, Prince William began having second thoughts within weeks of their split in 2007. In early June, Queen Elizabeth’s grandson reportedly reached out to Catherine while she was in Ibiza with her family.
During a call, William told her that he was missing her and floated the idea of them attending a previously planned “Freakin’ Naughty” themed party. There, William and Catherine ended up spending “hours locked in deep conversation,” with William talking about his “fear of letting someone truly experience the world in which he lived,” as well as his fear of rejection if he allowed himself to get too close.
Per Russell, Catherine was willing to agree to a future provided William stopped allowing “outside factors to affect his judgement.” When they returned to the party, the Prince and his future wife are said to have had eyes only for each other. Now back together, they were reportedly keen on keeping their reconciliation private for as long as possible.
Though they were spotted together the following month when Catherine sat in the royal box at Wembley Stadium, two rows behind William and his brother, Prince Harry, at a concert commemorating what would have been Princess Diana’s 46th birthday.
© Getty ImagesThe next month, in August, the lovebirds traveled to the Seychelles. The getaway, Russell wrote, was a “time to reconnect,” and was the setting for “the most honest heart-to-hearts” William and Catherine had had to date.
“William made a promise to Catherine that, despite their previous troubles and his uncertainty over his future, she was the only person he could see himself spending the rest of his life with,” Russell penned. “He assured Catherine that an engagement and marriage would certainly happen, but now was not the right time. He had to maintain focus on his career in the military, and somehow come to terms with the further pressure of what marriage would mean for both of them.”
A promise of marriage
The engagement finally came, years later, in October 2010, in a place that Prince William has previously said “always held a special place” in his heart: Africa. During a holiday in Kenya, the Prince got down on one knee and proposed to Catherine with his late mother’s diamond and sapphire engagement ring. News that the two were betrothed was announced the following month by Clarence House.
© Getty ImagesAfter posing for their photocall on November 16, 2010, the bride and groom-to-be sat down for an interview with ITV News, during which they addressed breaking up. In addition to their split in 2007, it’s been reported that the couple split after graduating college in 2005.
“We did split up for a bit, but that was just, you know, we were both very young. It was at university and we were both finding ourselves as such and being, different characters and stuff,” William explained.
“It was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up and so it was just a bit of space and a bit of things like that. And it soon worked out for the better,” the Prince continued.
Catherine confirmed in the sit-down that the split was a chance for her to recenter herself. She also said: “I think I at the time I wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person. You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realized or I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you’re younger and you know I really valued that time for me as well. Although I didn’t think it at the time, looking back on it.”
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