Kate Middleton and her husband, Prince William, have their hands full raising their three children. Prince George has already visited what could be his next school, which takes applications from prospective students three(!) years beforehand!
Prince William, alongside several other royals, went to Eton College. The prestigious school has an excellent reputation, and it appears that it might also be George’s destiny to follow in his father’s footsteps.
But now, it looks like Kate Middleton is not at all in the same boat as her husband when it comes to choosing schools for their children. According to a new report, the Princess of Wales is “heartbroken” about William’s latest call.
Prince William and Princess Kate have had quite the schedule in the last few months. The prince has been traveling abroad, while Kate remained in the UK, performing her royal duties and supporting their children.
However, in recent weeks, she has been away from her royal duties, and that is because of her eldest son.
Kate Middleton on break from royal duties
According to The Mirror, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis are on their autumn half-term holidays from school. The royal children now have their first break of the school year, which began on October 13. The students are set to return on Monday, October 30.
Therefore, Princess Kate has decided to keep her engagements to a minimum to spend time with her children instead. Meanwhile, Prince William is set to attend the Earthshot Prize Award. Prince George is said to have exams in just a few weeks and will likely use some of his spare time during the school break to study.
Kate has always been very keen on her family and will not attend her husband’s Earthshot Prize Award because she wants to support her son before his exams.
“The Princess will not be attending. Prince George has exams that week, and the princess wants to be at home to support him,” a source told The Mirror.
Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis all go to Lambrook School, not far away from their home at the Windsor grounds. The school offers a variety of activities for the children, and for the royal kids, having siblings nearby is probably a very calming feeling.
However, as they grow up, there are already talks about where the youngster will continue their education. Safe to say, it is a critical decision Prince William and Princess Kate have to make. But they already have their sights set on Prince George’s new school.
Some months ago, the young prince was spotted alongside his parents looking around Eton College. Both Prince William and Prince Harry attended the prestigious boarding school in the past.
Prince George to attend Eton?
Eton’s tuition is around £46,000 ($59,000) a year. Though Prince George won’t join the school until he turns 13, children have to be registered for the school during the year that they turn 10, according to the school’s website.
So what would it mean if George attended Eton? According to The Express‘ royal correspondent, Richard Palmer, it surprisingly says a lot about Kate.
“I find it fascinating because the Princess of Wales is spending so much of her life talking about giving children a better start in life, and part of that, she and her advisors have talked about reducing inequality,” he said.
“And there you have her children at a fee-paying independent school, almost certain to go to an expensive fee-paying boarding school later on.”
Prince William and Kate Middleton have always said they want to give their children a normal childhood. But if that is the case, would they send them to a boarding school like Eton?
According to former BBC royal expert, Jennie Bond, it doesn’t make sense.
“The choice of school for the children will tell us a lot about William and Catherine,” she told OK!.
“So far, they’ve been such a hands-on parents and, personally, I think it would be sad to see them send their children away to boarding school. I would applaud a decision to keep them as day pupils at schools nearby their home. But I think both William and Catherine were happy at boarding school. I suppose it’s what they know, and perhaps they will want to pass this experience on to their children.”
Bond added, “I imagine it will be all or nothing – in other words, all three will go away to school, or none of them. I will be cheering loudly if they decide to keep their children close and nurture them through their adolescence as they have nurtured them through the young years.”
Which royal family members have attended Eton?
Historically, where royal children go to school has been a hot topic. King Charles, for example, attended the prestigious Gordonstoun boarding school in Moray, Scotland. His father, Prince Philip, also studied there, but the young prince didn’t like it as much.
Reports stated that King Charles’ experience was horrifying compared to his father’s, as his classmates bullied him. At one point, Charles was said to have even compared it to serving a prison sentence.
Moreover, in letters dated 1964, King Charles revealed he was very homesick. That part was also detailed in the television series The Crown.
“It’s such hell here, especially at night. I don’t get any sleep practically at all nowadays. The people in my dormitory are foul. Goodness, they are horrid, I don’t know how anyone could be so foul,” a letter from Charles read.
Because of his own experiences, it was pretty evident that King Charles would not send his children to Gordonstoun. Therefore, William, the future king, was able to stay in London, where he attended Eton College.
The Mirror reported that then-Prince Charles could’ve attended Eton as well. However, Prince Philip argued that it was too close to Windsor and that he wouldn’t have had any privacy.
In 1995, Prince William walked through the doors at Eton for the first time, becoming the first senior royal to attend the school in history. Meanwhile, some other family members, including Princess Diana’s brother and her father, had previously attended the Berkshire schools, as well as the late Queen Elizabeth’s cousins, Prince Edward, Prince Richard, and Prince Michael.
Three years after William enrolled at Eton, Prince Harry followed in his brother’s footsteps. However, at that point, it appeared that a feud was developing between the two royal brothers.
Prince Harry was hurt by Prince William’s behavior at Eton
Speaking with CBS last year, Prince Harry gave details about his school days and, more specifically, his and William’s relationship.
In the interview with Anderson Cooper, the Duke said he was “hurt” by William. The future king wanted them to pretend they didn’t know each other.
“Even when you were in the same school, in high school, your brother told you, ‘Pretend we don’t know each other?’” Anderson Cooper asked.
“Yeah, and at the time, it hurt,” Harry replied. “I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’re now at the same school’. Like ‘I haven’t seen you for ages, now we don’t get to hang out together.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, when we’re at school we don’t know each other’. And I took that personally.”
Harry added, “We had a very similar traumatic experience, and then we – we dealt with it two very different ways.”
Moreover, in his explosive book Spare, Harry added more details about the heartbreaking things William told him while at Eton.
William had told Harry that Eton was his “sanctuary,” which included “no kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle.”
“I told him not to worry. I’ll forget I ever knew you,” Harry wrote in Spare.
In three years, Prince George could become the first in the next generations of royals to attend Eton. Time will tell if his siblings will join him, but at the moment, they get to enjoy their time at Lambrook.
But while Eton might be an outstanding school, Princess Kate has mixed emotions about sending her son to a boarding school.
Kate Middleton “heartbroken” over Prince George’s Eton decision
According to In Touch Weekly, Kate has reluctantly agreed to Prince George’s wish to be “just like his father” and attend Eton. But it’s not something she would’ve wanted in the first place because of her own boarding school experiences.
“But she’s still heartbroken. She was horribly bullied at her first boarding school and can’t bear the thought of George suffering through that.”
Meanwhile, George will be able to visit his family every weekend, the insider told the news outlet. It’s only a five-minute drive from their Windsor home. However, Kate is still worried that she will miss him dearly.
“But it still seems as if her family is being torn apart,” an insider added.
Princess Kate’s experience at boarding school was far from ideal. She first enrolled at the all-girls boarding school Downe House, where her parents, Carole and Michael, reportedly paid around £28,000 in tuition. But it became a nightmare for Kate.
A friend at a later school, Gemma Williamson, previously told The Daily Mail (via Yahoo), “Apparently, she had been bullied very badly, and she certainly looked thin and pale. She had very little confidence.”
According to Kate’s former classmate Emma Sayle, the princess hated that her school was “cliquey.”
“It is a very cliquey school, and there was a lot of pressure,” she told RSVP Live, as quoted by Express.
“The girls were all high achievers, and there were lots of girls with eating disorders. Everyone wanted to be the best, the fittest, the prettiest. I think Kate was miserable from the start.”
Kate Middleton was bullied at boarding school
Royal expert Katie Nicholl added, “Being especially slender and a head taller than her peers, she stood out for the wrong reasons and was teased for being gangly and lanky,”
The fact that Kate started at the school two years after her peers – added to the fact that she didn’t ‘live’ there – was a significant factor in why Kate was poorly treated, according to former Downe House student Georgina Rylance.
“It does make a difference going from eleven,” another former Downe House student, Georgina Rylance, told the Sunday Times, as per royal expert Katie Nicholl. “You have two years of bonding, your first time away all together. Even some of the most popular girls in my school had a hard time when they came in at thirteen.”
Eventually, Kate decided to tell her parents about everything she had endured and the bullying that took place. She switched schools – and it changed everything.
Hopefully, Prince George won’t have to go through anything like her mother did. But we can safely say that Kate will be there in seconds, ensuring that her beloved son – and future king – is being treated well by his classmates.
If you enjoyed this article, perhaps you’d be interested in reading about William and Kate’s affair rumors – and who was said to have been the future king’s ”mistress.’
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