Kate's first love: Willem Marx was her boyfriend at Marlborough
He’s charming, handsome and second in line to the throne, so it is no surprise Prince William had his fair share of female admirers before Kate Middleton stole his heart. And with her natural poise, Kate certainly turned heads before she landed her Prince.
Their wedding will see Westminster Abbey filled with pretty gals and rugged chaps who all have one thing in common: a past flirtation with the future King and Queen of England.
Here, CATHERINE OSTLER looks at the exes likely to have received an embossed invitation — and the ones who didn’t make the cut ...
Back to where it all began: Prince William and Kate Middleton at St Andrews University. Before their romance, William had his fair share of admirers and his fiancee also turned heads, but who's coming to the wedding?
WILLIAM'S EXES
DAVINA DUCKWORTH-CHAD, 32
The Sporty Deb
LOVE STORY: Davina went on Prince William’s ‘love boat’ — a cruise of the Aegean Sea in summer 1999. William got to ask lots of good-looking girls to disguise the fact that it was Camilla’s first holiday with Charles, but was said to be particularly taken with Davina, the daughter of a Norfolk landowner. Her mother is a cousin of Princess Diana’s, and her brother was an equerry to the Queen. Like William, she loves sailing and tennis. For five minutes it looked a perfect match.
LIFE STORY: After university, Davina, a one-time model, worked for Lady Helen Windsor’s husband Tim Taylor in his gallery, then married Old Etonian and baronet’s heir Tom Barber. They’ve since had twins.
INVITED? Yes. And both William and Harry went to her wedding.
Davina Duckworth-Chad (left) went on Prince William's 'love boat' in the summer of 1999. Natalie Hicks-Lobbecke (right) used to flirt with William at the Beaufort Polo Club
NATALIE HICKS-LOBBECKE, 31
The Wiltshire Adventuress
LOVE STORY: A ‘Beaufort Belle’ who used to flirt with William at the Beaufort Polo Club. An athletic head girl type and daughter of an Army officer, she’s fluent in French and German, and was captain of tennis and netball at Warminster School. You get the picture.
LIFE STORY: Natalie is now married to intrepid property entrepreneur Ed Milbank, who is the son of baronet Sir Anthony Milbank and heir to his Yorkshire estate. He set up a company in Montenegro and she was a security consultant in Iraq for a London-based company, so they’re certainly well-matched. Now the happy parents of a young son.
INVITED? Only if they need to make up the numbers, which is unlikely.
JESSICA (JECCA) CRAIG, 28
The African Queen
LOVE STORY: Rumoured holiday romance with William during his 2000-2001 gap year when he stayed at Lewa Downs, her parents’ 55,000-acre ranch in Kenya. Presence at his ‘Out Of Africa’ themed 21st at Windsor Castle in 2003, placed next to William, may have irritated Kate.
Life STORY: A willowy beauty who once wore a Crocodile Dundee hat to a grand English wedding. Anthropology graduate studying a strange tribe — the Royal Family. Now a top literary agent.
INVITED? Yes. They remain good friends. William even proposed to Kate at Lewa Downs. But what sort of hat will Jecca sport on the big day?
Jessica (Jecca) Craig (left) is rumoured to have enjoyed a holiday romance with the Prince during his 2000-2001 gap year. Olivia Hunt (right) was a pre-Kate Scottish blink-and-you-missed-it flirtation
OLIVIA HUNT
The Brainy Blonde
LOVE STORY: A pre-Kate Scottish blink-and-you-missed-it flirtation. The Heathfield-educated daughter of a Belgravia doctor, Olivia and William shared lots of mutual friends, such as the Van Cutsems and her bestie, Lady Mary Douglas-Home, whose father is friends with the Queen. She and Mary were at Edinburgh University, where they’d hang out with William in a pub called The Cumberland.
LIFE STORY: Olivia, now 27, has stayed friends with William and Kate and has skied with them in Klosters. Like Jessica Craig, she is an aspiring literary agent at United Agents, where she works as an assistant for top dog Caroline Dawnay. Hers will be another outfit worth watching. She wears McQueen and Issa — Kate’s favourite — in a slightly quirky fashion, and has the figure to carry it off.
INVITED? Yes. With her sister Marina, a children’s party organiser wed to William’s friend, adventurer Ben Fogle.
ARABELLA MUSGRAVE, 28
The Gucci Cutie
LOVE STORY: Was William’s girlfriend in the summer before he went to St Andrews in 2001. The daughter of Major Nicholas Musgrave, who runs Cirencester Park Polo Club, she met William through his friends the Van Cutsems. It was a Gloucestershire romance: a local pub called The Tunnel House Inn was their tunnel of love. Wills was said to be ‘pining for her’ when he got to St Andrews.
LIFE STORY: Bella swapped wellies for stilettos. She is now a slick fashion PR at Gucci, who poached her from Prada. Went out with brewery heir James Tollemache, whose father is a friend of Charles; now dates banking heir George Galliers-Pratt, who is said to be ‘car-mad’ and works for Ford.
INVITED? Probably. A bit of Italian edge among the floral frocks.
Arabella Musgrave (right) was William's girlfriend in the summer before he went to St Andrews in 2001. Anna Sloan (left) was a student at Edinburgh Uni when the Prince met her
ANNA SLOAN, 28
American Dazzler
LOVE STORY: Blonde Anna was a student at Edinburgh Uni when William met her. The department store heiress from Nashville, Tennessee had, like the Prince, lost a parent in tragic circumstances: her father died in a shotgun accident on the 360-acre family estate.
William stayed with her in August 2004. It is not clear whether his priority was Anna or gallivanting around Tennessee.
LIFE STORY: Anna moved to London and worked for the top-notch Chelsea-based interior decorator Veere Grenney before setting up an interior design business with Edinburgh chum Emilia d’Erlanger called d’Erlanger and Sloan, where they promote muted, international good taste.
INVITED? Probably. Her business partner Emilia is one of Kate’s best friends from Marlborough and will be at the wedding too.
CARLY MASSY-BIRCH, 27
The Boho Bumpkin
LOVE STORY: Prince William’s first girlfriend when he arrived at St Andrews was a tall, pretty, bohemian farmer’s daughter from Devon who merrily described herself as a ‘bumpkin’.
Fellow students were more struck by her amazing figure, which she showed to best effect in tight trousers, winning her the prestigious award of ‘finest first-year bottom’.
She cooked a few pasta suppers for Wills during their first term, but then they split up at ‘Raisin Weekend’. This is a student weekend that involves getting hog-whimperingly drunk and then having a ‘foam fight’ in the centre of town in homemade fancy dress.
LIFE STORY: Became an actress on stage and radio after St Andrews, but the lure of limelight has faded, as she has since run off to the South of France with a sailor.
INVITED? Unlikely.
Carly Massy-Birch (right) was William's first girlfriend when he arrived at St Andrews. Rose Farquhar (left) was the Prince's first proper girlfriend and his first 'Beaufort Belle'
ROSE FARQUHAR, 27
The English Rose
LOVE STORY: Gloucestershire Rose has known William since childhood. Youngest daughter of dashing Captain Ian Farquhar, master of the Beaufort Hunt, and his horse-mad wife Pammy Jane, Rose was William’s first proper girlfriend and his first ‘Beaufort Belle’ — the pretty girls who frequent the Beaufort Polo Club. This was a Highgrove-based post A-level romance on William’s year off in 2000-2001. She went to Westonbirt, a girls’ school in nearby Tetbury.
LIFE STORY: Rose went to a top theatre school in New York. Now a solo singer, she says she is influenced by Dusty Springfield and Carly Simon, and has a gig coming up at the end of March in London.
INVITED? Yes, still friends. Family likely to come, too.
KATE'S EXES
Kate's first love: Willem Marx was her boyfriend at Marlborough
WILLEM MARX, 28
The Wild Card
LOVE STORY: Good-looking Willem was said to be Kate’s first love and her boyfriend at Marlborough, where she mostly seems to have been tediously well-behaved.
But they stayed friends, and one night a couple of years ago Willem escorted Kate to Boujis, where they danced and drank ‘Crack Daddy’ vodka and champagne cocktails — and were photographed together leaving, beaming, in a taxi.
LIFE STORY: Willem cuts a dashing figure — the Oxford graduate and journalist worked for a while in Iraq placing propaganda stories in the local media on behalf of the Americans.
His work as a reporter has earned him an Emmy nomination. He’s also dated Lancome model (and Ingrid Bergman’s granddaughter) Elettra Rossellini.
INVITED? Probably. Unless, as with Rupert Finch (see below), Kate panics and bans her exes.
No comments:
Post a Comment