William and Harry: Like Mother, Like Sons

Anyone who was at Eton in the mid-'90s, when Prince William was a student at the élite English boarding school, would hardly have noticed there was a royal in their midst. There was the solitary uniformed policeman standing outside the boys' house where he lived (his plainclothes bodyguards were harder to spot). And there was the fact that, while teachers referred to most students by their last names, he was just William. Otherwise, he was treated like any other student — except on the rugby field. When the prince joined one of the school's junior rugby teams, "it suddenly became very easy for us to win games," says a former classmate. Not because the other teams were afraid to tackle the second in line to the throne — but because they wouldn't stop, and thus took their eye off other team members. "The opposition would take it in turns to try and smack him into the ground," says the former Etonian. "It was something fun for them to do while their mums were watching."

Despite the regular games of Pummel the Prince, William fit right in at Eton. "He was just a normal guy," says his ex-schoolmate. The word normal pops up over and over in conversations about William, 25, and his brother Harry, 22. For two young men whose lives and destinies are so extraordinary, the princes spend a lot of time chasing after ordinary, average, everyday. They date commoners; they do their own grocery shopping; they hate it when people call them Sir. The best thing about joining the military, Harry once said, "is being able to fit in as just a normal person." While William was at Scotland's St. Andrews University, he said he relished the fact that "people here just treat me like everyone else." And in a recent U.S. TV interview, Harry insisted: "We are slightly normal. We have a normal side to us."

It's like a birthday wish for world peace: no matter how many times they say it, they know it won't come true. William Arthur Philip Louis Wales and Henry Charles Albert David Wales will never be just two of the guys. But that they even try might be all that matters. Of all the things they inherited from their mother — from William's sad eyes to Harry's toothy grin — their determination to shrug off some of the restraints that tradition and pedigree impose on them could be what keeps the monarchy from becoming obsolete at a time when most of its subjects think it needs to modernize (and when almost half think it won't exist by the time William steps up to the plate). Their mother would surely have approved. "All Diana wanted to do was teach her children how to be real human beings, not to have the robotic childhood that Charles did," says Christopher Andersen, author of After Diana: William, Harry, Charles and the Royal House of Windsor. "She wanted to be relevant and she wanted her sons to be relevant."

So there were trips to Disney World, days out go-karting, lunches at McDonald's. With Dad, the boys rode horses; with Mom, they rode the London Underground. For a weekend with Charles, the dress code was blazers and pressed trousers; Diana dressed them in kids' clothes. After her death, it seemed the princes would become, in Andersen's words, "Windsorized," fully indoctrinated into the Firm for a life of polo, fox hunting and all things royal. Instead, they picked up where Diana left off — she dragged the monarchy into the 21st century, and her sons plan to keep it there. "Now we see that the seed she planted way back when they were little boys has blossomed," says Andersen. "They are her triumph over the royal family."

But there are hazards to a jeans-and-T-shirt monarchy. More freedom means less privacy, and William and Harry are the world's most famous brothers. If one of them stumbles out of a nightclub at 3 a.m., we inevitably hear about it. Harry, especially, has had a life written in hysterical headlines: HARRY'S DRUG SHAME (caught smoking pot), HARRY THE NAZI (an ill-considered outfit at a fancy-dress party), SKIRTY HARRY (canoodling with a barmaid). "Harry's had to put up with a lot," says Judy Wade, a royal watcher for Hello! magazine. "He's been labeled the playboy prince, the one who gets drunk all the time. William does exactly the same things, but the papers cover for William because he's the heir." Then again, many people like the fact that Harry and William have a bit of the rebel in them — just like their mother. "They do the kinds of things that other people's kids do," says Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine. "They go to nightclubs, they get drunk, they have girlfriends. It's because they're not in this ivory tower we can relate to them."

But William knows there's a fine line separating casual royal from national embarrassment, and the closer he gets to the throne, the more careful he gets. "William's more like Charles in the sense that he's more aloof and he thinks before he acts," says Wade. "He's cautious, whereas Harry plunges headlong into life. William's worried about making a mistake; Harry wears his heart on his sleeve." While Harry and his girlfriend Chelsy Davy take public displays of affection to a new level, William and Kate Middleton's off-again, on-again relationship can seem more like a game of chess than a romance.

With the monarchy's reputation on his shoulders, William can come off as a bit cold in public. But in private, he's very much his mother's son. "He has real empathy with people in general, but especially those his own age. Like his mother, he obviously cares and he's a good listener," says Anthony Lawton, CEO of Centrepoint, a charity for homeless youth that Diana supported and whose patron William became in 2005. Before committing, the prince spent three days volunteering at various Centrepoint hostels, and he still pops in now and then. "People feel of more value when they see that our future King wants to spend time with them," says Lawton. "Still, it can be a bit startling when you come into the kitchen all sleepy-eyed and find Prince William making your coffee."

Again, Diana's influence is unmistakable. She took William and Harry on visits to aids clinics and homeless shelters, and they have inherited her brand of compassion. In 2006, after a trip to Lesotho in South Africa, Harry and Lesotho's Prince Seeiso cofounded a charity called Sentebale to help the country's most disadvantaged children. "Harry does exactly what his mother used to do — he instinctively gets down to a child's level," says Sentebale's CEO Geoffrey Matthews. "The first thing he does is squat down on his haunches, and immediately he's won the child's heart."

Still, the burden of such responsibilities and expectations must at times seem overwhelming to the young princes. As the future King, William must move the monarchy forward without ripping it from its foundations, and must prove himself a suitable sovereign without losing his guy-next-door appeal. On top of all that, William, whom Diana called "my deep thinker," and Harry — "my little joker" — must figure out how to keep their mother's legacy alive as they build legacies of their own.

So far, so good. The brothers have already shown that they won't stay stuck in the past: when the nation was still giving the evil eye to Charles' then-girlfriend Camilla Parker Bowles, they welcomed her into the fold; while Mohamed al Fayed accuses the royal family of orchestrating the deaths of Diana and his son Dodi, the princes have invited his daughters to Diana's memorial service later this month. The British public has been won over: William is neck-and-neck with Charles as their favorite to succeed the Queen, while Harry's hopes (ultimately frustrated) of going to Iraq with the army won him a victory in the battle for British hearts and minds. All the princes have to do is keep this up for another 70 years or so. William and Harry will never be normal — but considering the pressures they face, it's a miracle that they even come close.