A slew of recent books by royal experts such as Ingrid Seward (editor of Majesty magazine) and Brian Hoey have begun belatedly to hint at this. Yet as a country we have still to absorb the fact that the person who is second-in-line to the throne just ain’t going to play the royal game.But why would William want to renounce the throne, and all the status, luxury and hard cash that comes with it? One anecdote begins to point to his thinking. Nicholas Davies, the royal expert, has revealed that during one holiday in his mid-teens, William was tobogganing down a steep hill in the dark. When he neared the bottom of the slope, where cars were passing, a detective leapt out, seemingly from nowhere. He threw himself on to the sledge and sent William hurtling into a pile of snow. William screamed, “Why do I have to be surrounded by policemen all the time? Why won’t you just let me be a normal person?”It’s a good question: why won’t we let him be a normal person? Why do we insist on a human sacrifice just so we can cheerfully retain a feudal head of state for us to torment? William’s life has at every step been warped and distorted by the sadistic institution of monarchy. Wherever he goes, he is followed by an armed private detective who is at most 50 yards behind.

On his first day at school, there were 150 photographers waiting for him. His primary school had to have its windows replaced with bullet-proof glass. He has been threatened with anthrax attacks by terrorist groups. He had to be driven even from his school to the playing fields in his last year at Eton, in order to avoid the paparazzi.

William’s moments of anonymity are so precious that he can list them In 1999, he was representing his school in a cricket match. The scorer walked up to him in a tea break and brusquely demanded to know his name. He said simply, “William.” The scorer snapped, “William who?” When it was explained by the other boys who he was, the scorer was profusely apologetic, but William nearly cried as he said, “Thank you. Thank you! You don’t know what that just meant to me.”William has seen the institution of monarchy destroy the lives of his parents. His father is doomed to wait impatiently for his own mother to die just so he can have a job.

Charles has been forbidden to marry the woman he loves; he was forced to marry a manic-depressive whom he didn’t even especially like; and he has been so surrounded by sycophants and deference since birth that his personality is irreparably warped Yet even his story is a happy one compared to Diana’s. On holiday in St Tropez shortly before she died, Diana told reporters that “my boys are urging me to leave the country. They say it’s the only way – William is stressed, William gets really freaked out.” Famously, William was the one to comfort Diana when she suffered at the hands of the press. He once pushed some tissues under the bathroom door and said, “Don’t cry, Mummy.”While holidaying with her in Lech in 1995, William reacted with fury when a group of photographers broke an agreement that they would take no more pictures of Diana that day. He had an aggressive altercation with them and threatened to take their cameras away.