Inside Kate Middleton’s Marlborough College days: Princess flourished from a ‘shy bullied girl’ to confident hockey captain at £42,900-a-year school as it’s rumoured she is ‘devastated’ over William’s decision to send Prince George to Eton

As Prince George approaches his teenage years, the talk among royal circles is rife as to where the future king will head for his secondary education.

Perhaps the most obvious choice is his father’s alma mater Eton, which is of course just a short drive from their couple’s Adelaide Cottage home in the grounds of Windsor Castle.

But the Princess of Wales is said to be ‘heartbroken’ over Prince William ‘s decision to send Prince George to single-sex Eton College when he turns 13, a royal insider claimed.

The source told In Touch Weekl that Kate is ‘heartbroken’ at the idea of sending George away to a boarding school – as she was ‘horribly bullied at her first single-sex boarding school, and can’t bear the thought of George suffering through that’.

Speculation had grown in December that the Wales’s may snub Eton College in favour of Malborough College in Wiltshire, which was attended by Kate Middleton.

In October, the Princess of Wales was spotted visiting her old stomping ground Marlborough College.

‘Catherine was here the other day. It’s been the talk of the school,’ a source told Daily Mail’s Richard Eden at the time. 

The Wiltshire boarding school, is where both Kate and her siblings James and Pippa attended, and is said to have transformed the future Queen from a ‘shy bullied girl’ to a ‘hockey captain that snagged a Prince’. So it’s obvious why Kate would want her children to follow in her footsteps there. 

There is certainly a royal track record there. Princess Eugenie and Captain Mark Philips are fellow Old Marlburians – and going to Marlborough will mean Princess Charlotte will be able to attend the same school as her older brother.

While it’s still two years away, many of the top public schools begin their selection process in Year 6, the school year George began in September.

Both George, Charlotte and their younger brother Prince Louis are currently at the £50,000 a year Lambrook School in Bracknell. It’s believed that Kate is particularly keen on keeping the children together.

This wouldn’t be possible of course if George were to instead head to Eton – which only accepts boys – although Provost Lord (William) Waldegrave, told Daily Mail’s Richard Kay last year that the school will go ‘co-ed in due course’.

When King Charles sent Princes William and Harry to Eton, it was seen in a break of tradition.  

Although Eton has become the epitome of the establishment, with 20 Prime Ministers attending,  Charles and Diana sending the young princes there was a break from tradition, as typically royal male heirs were sent to Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun – where  Charles and his father Prince Philip both attended.

Charles described the school as ‘Colditz with kilts’ and ‘a prison sentence’. 

So, could Kate follow suit and send her children to a different school again?

The future queen is very fond of her days at Malrborough. Since it was founded in 1843 for the purpose of educating the sons of clergymen, the £42,930-per-year Marlborough College has seen many future famous faces walk through its doors.

Artist William Morris, the poets John Betjeman and Siegfried Sassoon, and Samantha Cameron and funnyman Jack Whitehall have all passed through the hallowed halls. 

And in 1996 – seven years after it became fully co-educational, having previously only admitted girls in the sixth form – it welcomed a princess-in-waiting, even if few might have guessed it at first.

The then 14-year-old Kate Middleton arrived in Marlborough, Wiltshire as a shy and lanky teen, having moved after enduring alleged bullying at her previous school, Downe House in Berkshire.

It would prove to be an entrée into a world which would eventually see her rubbing shoulders with a notably privileged group of students and see her secure a place at the ancient St Andrews University – where Prince William happened to be studying.

Such a trajectory seemed unlikely when she first arrived in rural Wiltshire, however.

‘She had very little confidence,’ previously recalled her dorm mate Gemma Williamson, who described the new arrival who joined in the middle of the year as ‘thin and pale’. 

Kate’s house tutor Joan Gall has also said she was suffering from eczema due to stress. 

‘When she arrived she was very quiet. Coming into a big school like Marlborough was difficult, but she settled in quickly.’ Miss Gall previously said: ‘It was like a big, happy family. We would do things like bake cakes and watch videos.’ 

Certainly, the girl who would go on to become a celebrated royal beauty did not initially catch the eye of male pupils, who would crudely give passing girls a score out of ten as they made their way to supper. Kate was given a mere two.

Yet during her four years at Marlborough the future Princess of Wales blossomed into a beautiful, sought after young woman as well as an accomplished one who excelled at hockey and who would go on to become co-captain of the tennis team.

In fact, unlike her time at Downe House, Kate felt at home from the start of her time at Marlborough, where she joined the school’s cosy all-girls boarding house, Elmhurst.

Contemporaries recall her as the perfect pupil, listening to her Walkman, watching Friends and indulging in Marmite sandwiches.

Meanwhile, housemistress Ann Patching recalled her former pupil’s love of lasagne and pasta bakes but said that Kate ‘always stayed very slim’. 

Naturally kind-hearted, she quickly gained a close circle of friends, among them her peers on the hockey team, one of whom accompanied her on a trip to Ibiza to recover from her heartbreak after she briefly broke up with Prince William in 2007. 

Unfazed by her popularity however, she remained a responsible role model and was never caught with illicit booze unlike her friends, one of whom once confided: ‘A group of us used to sneak off to Reading to go drinking but she would never join us.’ 

In fact, Kate was only charged with one lapse in good behaviour when she threw up on the train home after an all-night champagne and dance party hosted by a member of her hockey team.

It was after a hockey tour to Argentina, friends recall – followed by a family trip to the Caribbean – that a then 16-year-old Kate returned to the school sixth form newly transformed.

‘She was an absolute beauty,’ according to friend Gemma, who says boys now ‘fancied her rotten.’

Among them was the comedian Jack Whitehall, who attended Marlborough a few years below Kate and who admitted in an interview that she was his first crush.

He later joked of being jealous of the attention the princess received from the school, venting: ‘I went to the same secondary school as Kate Middleton and she’s someone they like to talk about.

‘I’ve been sending them a letter each year saying maybe now it’s time to put me in the school prospectus or on the walls. I feel like I’m their dirty little secret.’

Nonetheless, despite becoming a favoured among the boys, the princess did not have lengthy dalliances with the opposite sex.

‘I got the distinct impression that Catherine wanted to save herself for someone special,’ said Gemma previously.

Her first kiss is believed to have been with Woody, the elder brother of Alice St John Webster – one of Kate’s closest friends. 

She also reportedly had a brief romance with Harry Blakelock, captain of the rugby team, which fizzled out after he left school, leaving Kate ‘heartbroken’.

There’s no question that Kate made quite an impact on her school, later hailed as ‘Person most likely to be loved by everybody’ in her yearbook when she departed on her gap year before heading to University of St Andrews after achieving two As and a B in her A Levels.

By then she had been followed to Marlborough by her younger sister Pippa who, untainted by earlier experiences of bullying, was seen by contemporaries as the more naturally confident half of the Middleton pair.

She enrolled at the same boarding house as her older sister, and joined the hockey team, yet there was little in the way of sibling rivalry according to contemporaries.

In fact, along with friend Alice St John Webster they are remembered as a tight trio.

‘Alice, Pippa and Kate were a very tight group and all best friends from the age of 14 upwards. It could be a bit suffocating. They did everything together,’ one friend said.

Riding a wave of success in the sporting and social spheres at prep school, Pippa won an all-rounder scholarship to Marlborough and became captain of the hockey team.

Unlike Kate’s meek start at the college, Pippa took every opportunity to make an impression at the school, with one contemporary saying: ‘Pippa was slightly tough and, back then, the one with the charisma. No one would ever think of bullying her.’

She was given the unfortunate nickname ‘pan face’ because of her supposed flat features but was not put off trying to impress her male peers, even when playing sport.

‘My focus is on winning and making sure that my hair — fashioned into a slick Sporty Spice “up do” — is just right. Did I mention boys watching?’ she wrote in the Spectator.

Seen as the ‘alpha’ sister in contrast to ‘kind-hearted, home-loving’ Kate, Pippa ‘loved being the centre of attention’ according to one contemporary.

She was chatty, funny and louder than her sister but, despite her sociable nature, she followed Kate’s example of dodging drinking and smoking.

Housemistress Ann Patching later described the relationship between the well behaved pair saying: ‘Pippa was good at everything and sharper academically, but I don’t think Catherine ever resented that.’

Twenty three years after Kate departed for the last time meanwhile, there is no question that the school – with its serene setting amid two lakes, and boasting a competition swimming pool, cricket pavilion and international-standard athletics track – remains a popular destination for well-heeled parents. 

According to the Which school guide, competition for places at the school increased after it became known as the alma mater of the Princess of Wales.

Nor has it stopped it being mired in the occasional scandal. 

In 2016, some of the older pupils brought in a stripper to perform on the grounds, an act later branded ‘inappropriate’ by the school.

The boarding school was also criticised last year for not carrying out necessary safeguarding checks on teachers, after an Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) report revealed that checks including barred lists for prior criminal offences were not completed.

A spokesperson for the school said at the time: ‘Since our compliance inspection, the college has upgraded the record-keeping processes highlighted in the ISI report.

‘We have been keeping our parents informed and are looking forward to an early re-inspection.’

None of this is likely to deter the wealthy elite, many of whom will doubtless be anxious for their own offspring to attend a school that prepped the Princess of Wales for her royal calling – and if rumour has it, may also be set to educate her offspring.

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