20 January 2024 , 23:00
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Prince William and his younger brother Prince Harry both attended the prestigious Eton College when they were schoolboys.
The elite establishment has seen some of the most famous names pass through its doors on their way to wealth and power. Former students include Boris Johnson and David Cameron, George Orwell, Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston. However what is less well known is the sad reason why their father Prince Charles, as he was then, sent his children to the upper-crust school.
When he was a boy, Prince Charles attended Gordonstoun, which was a militant Scottish boarding school, Berkshire Live reports. The prince attended the school as his father Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, sent him, having also attended the school and loved it.
Prince Charles, however, did not share his father's passion for the school. The Heir to the throne was mercilessly bullied, and he has previously branded the school “Colditz in kilts” and said that staying there was like serving a "prison sentence."
Prince Harry Leaving Eton College June 2003 (Press Association)This could be why Prince William and Harry were sent to Eton College instead. Prince Charles could have been sent to Eton himself but the Duke of Edinburgh argued that it was too close to Windsor and London and said the young Prince would have more privacy from the press in Scotland.
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Season Two of the Netflix programme The Crown explores Charles's time at the school and the TV series depicts him being isolated from the rest of the boys there with one asking him "do you think you're better than us?" before pushing him into a river.
The Prince's homesickness was also revealed in published letters. In 1964 a young Prince Charles wrote: “It's such hell here especially at night. I don't get any sleep practically at all nowadays..
“The people in my dormitory are foul. Goodness, they are horrid, I don't know how anyone could be so foul."