Prince William came very close to quitting university after just one term at St Andrews until his father intervened, according to a royal author.

William joined the university in September 2001, studying Art History, but after a matter of weeks he was already having doubts. According to royal author Robert Lacey in his book Battle of Brothers, uni life wasn’t quite what the Prince had expected and he reportedly “had not anticipated quite how ‘boring’ – his word – life in a small Scottish seaside town could be”. In fact, according to Lacey, the highlight of William’s week was shopping at Tesco and playing sport on a Wednesday.

And for a prince who everyone instantly recognised, navigating student life was a challenge; his nights out were “clouded” because all the other students were fascinated by him, and he wasn’t enjoying his course. In the end, William only spent two of the 13 term-time weekends at the university and would often go home to London or Highgrove. And as he headed back for the Christmas break, he confided in his father that he wanted to leave the university and move elsewhere.

According to Lacey, Charles originally agreed with his son, but he changed his mind after speaking with his private secretary Sir Stephen Lamport, who also confided in deputy private secretary Mark Bolland. Palace aides were concerned the situation could cause a ‘personal disaster for William’ and that the Prince ‘would have been seen as a quitter’. Indeed, his grandfather Prince Philip had a typically no-nonse response to the news, reportedly saying: “William needs to knuckle down and not wimp out”.

Charles’s spin doctor, Mark Bolland, later lifted the lid on how they dealt with William’s dilemma. He told Lacey: “It was no different from what many first-year students go through. We approached the whole thing as a wobble, which was entirely normal. St Andrews had a flexible course structure and when they heard that William might be happier majoring in geography, they made sure there were no roadblocks.”

After working out the new plan, the aides went back to Charles and suggested he should “demonstrate a more fatherly backbone”. So over Christmas, Charles did just that and sat his son down for a heart-to-heart. It worked, and William agreed to go back to St Andrews. The decision changed much more than his education. Returning to Scotland meant William grew closer, and fell in love with Kate Middleton, who he would go on to marry in April 2011.

William has himself spoken about the “wobble”, saying: “I don’t think I was homesick, I was more daunted. My father was very understanding about it and realised I had the same problem he probably had. We chatted a lot, and in the end we both realised – I definitely realised – that I had to come back.”