September will be an exciting time for Prince George, with the 13-year-old royal due to start the next phase of his education at Eton College, the alma mater of both his father, Prince William, and his uncle, Prince Harry.
However, the Duke of Sussex hasn't always looked fondly back at his time at the Windsor-based institution, writing about his negative experiences in his memoir, Spare, which was published in 2023.
"In the early autumn of 1998, having completed my education at Ludgrove the previous spring, I entered Eton," he began. "A profound shock. The finest school in the world for boys, Eton was meant to be a shock, I think.
"Shock must've been part of its original charter, even perhaps a part of the instructions given to its first architects by the school's founder, my ancestor Henry VI. He deemed Eton some sort of holy shrine, a sacred temple, and to that end he wanted it to overwhelm the senses, so visitors would feel like meek, abased pilgrims. In my case, mission accomplished."
Harry highlighted the major figures that had studied at the school, adding that while it may have been a great place for "brilliant boys" it was "purgatory for one very unbrilliant boy".
He added: "Once or twice I'd confess to a teacher or fellow student that I wasn't merely in the wrong class but in the wrong location. I was in way, way over my head. They'd always say the same thing: Don't worry, you'll be all right."
© Getty ImagesHarry also had another issue with Eton, that being the uniform, which Harry described as a "black tailcoat, white collarless shirt, white stiff collar pinned to the shirt with a stud — plus pinstripe trousers, heavy black shoes, and a tie that wasn’t a tie".
He said that the inspiration for the uniform was so that students were in "perpetual mourning" for Eton's founder, King Henry VI, who died at the age of 49 on 21 May 1471.
© Getty"Though Henry was my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and though I was sorry for his passing, and for whatever pain it had caused those who loved him, I wasn’t keen on mourning the man around the clock," Harry noted.
Prince William's time at Eton
The Prince of Wales became the first senior member of the royal family to enrol at Eton when he started studying there in 1995. Previous members of the royal family had studied at Gordonstoun School in Moray, Scotland; however, William's father, King Charles, had a miserable time there.
Speaking to HELLO! about why William enjoyed Eton, Grace Moody-Stuart, the consultancy director for The Good Schools Guide, shared: "Not feeling 'like he was special' at the school is something that obviously really matters. "If you go to a state school, or a public school, as we call them, and there's all the security around that, and you stand out like a sore thumb, it's very difficult [to] just feel like you're just one of the regular pupils."
© Tim GrahamThere was one element that William likely didn't enjoy, however, and that was his time on the rugby team. The current heir to the throne played alongside actor Eddie Redmayne, who told Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2018: "I always felt a bit sorry for him because basically any school you played, all they wanted to do was tackle Prince William and they could say, 'I tackled Prince William'.
"So if you were standing next to Prince William, like I was, it was actually quite easy and quite fun."
