Former commoner Kate Middleton's fairytale rise to royalty has fascinated millions, but according to reports in the new book on the Duchess, "Kate: The Future Queen" by royal editor Katie Nicholl, she met Prince William quite a while before the two attended St. Andrew's University together, so their courtship may not have been such a coincidence, EntertainmentWise reports.
According to the new book on the royal couple, Middleton was already friends with Prince William before the two attended university together, having met him back in 1999 at his father Prince Charles' Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire.
"We all knew as teachers that that year group was moving in Royal circles, that they were friends," Anne Patching, Kate's house-mistress said in the new book.
The book also claims that Middleton changed her choice of university from Edinburgh to St. Andrews right after Prince William had made his decision public, and decided to take a gap year just as he did. She spent her gap year in Florence before starting university in September 2001, but the Duchess was not alone in her decision to enroll alongside the prince.
St. Andrews University saw an increase of applications by 44 percent following the prince's decision to enroll in the school, with hundreds of young women hoping to be the lucky ones to date him. As it turns out, the Duchess's careful planning had a very big pay-off, as she turned out to be the one to snag the coveted heir to the throne.
Now the Duke and Duchess are very much in love and enjoying domestic bliss at home with their new son, Prince George, living in Wales until their Kensington Palace residence Apartment 1A completes renovations.
It looks like Kate Middleton may have made her own fairytale.
