By royal correspondent Judy Wade
As the wreckage of Prince William’s break-up with Kate Middleton slowly recedes, rumours continue as to the true reason behind the couple’s split.
Last week, one of her work colleagues claimed that 25-year-old Kate snapped on being questioned about the break-up, telling them, “It was because of his daddy.”
But palace insiders say rumblings that Charles told William to dump Kate in order to sow his wild oats are not entirely true.
“Prince Charles never orders his children to do anything,” says a former advisor. “He simply says, ‘We think this, what do you think?'”
Instead, insiders say Charles encouraged William to think hard about his future as rumours grew about a royal engagement.
Having proposed to Diana under the same type of intense scrutiny, Charles told Wills it was unfair to string Kate along indefinitely if he wasn’t sure about their relationship. He’d faced the same sort of dilemma over Diana and had made the wrong choice, but hoped his son wouldn’t do the same.
“It was a kind of take-your-time chat with his son,” says a member of Charles’s staff. “It wasn’t Charles playing the heavy parent and telling William what to do.”
Having lived with the scars of his parents’ ill-fated marriage, William was determined not to follow in his father’s footsteps.
Facing four months of enforced separation while he’s based in Dorset on England’s south coast at an army training camp, William decided it was time to end his relationship with Kate.
For the full story, see this week’s issue of Woman’s Day (on-sale May 7).