End to Prince William's romance dashes royal hopes
LONDON -- Many saw her as Britain's future queen, but it looks as though Kate Middleton's royal romance will not have a fairy-tale ending.
Middleton and Prince William have ended their four-year relationship, a decision that surprised palace-watchers and disappointed monarchists hoping for a royal wedding to rival that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
The Sun newspaper reported the breakup yesterday in a front-page story, saying the couple had reached an "amicable agreement" to separate.
William's Clarence House office refused to comment, but royal sources did not deny the report, tacitly acknowledging it was true.
The Sun said the split was caused by the "extraordinary pressures" on the couple and by William's career in the army. The second in line to the throne graduated from Sandhurst military academy in December and is undergoing further training at an army base in rural England, while Middleton lives in London.
It was widely thought the couple would soon announce their engagement; one bookmaker was so certain of a royal wedding that it stopped taking bets on it earlier this year. Woolworth's had commissioned mugs, plates, and other Wills-and-Kate memorabilia, despite the absence of a formal engagement.
The prince, 24, and Middleton, 25, met as students at St. Andrew's University in Scotland in 2001 and had been dating since 2003.
Their relationship became public with a photo of them on a Swiss skiing holiday in 2004, and Middleton became a media darling. The brunette fashion buyer was photographed attending public events, going to work, even getting a parking ticket -- a level of attention that evoked the romance of William's father, Prince Charles, and then-Lady Diana Spencer a quarter-century ago.
Charles and Diana married at St. Paul's Cathedral in 1981, in a ceremony watched by millions around the world. They had two sons, William and Harry, but divorced in 1996. Diana died in a car crash in Paris in August 1997. 