As predicted here, the great romance between Prince William (pictured) and his long-term girlfriend, Kate Middleton, is back on with a vengeance.

The golden couple split up in April after enormous media pressure on Kate, who was almost beseiged in her London home and faced a barrage of attention from paparazzi every time she left for work. The similarities with the young Diana Spencer were too close for comfort for many observers.

However, it appears that the split was genuine at the time and not part of an elaborate charade to take media attention away from Kate. Reports say they have been secretly seeing each other for weeks and that William invited her to a saucy Army party at his barracks in mid June.

An observer at the party is reported as saying, “William was following her around like a lost puppy as she went around the room, chatting away and dancing. In the end, he just grabbed her and took her onto the dancefloor where they started doing some rather close dancing. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other but William didn’t care that people were looking. At about midnight he started kissing and smooching her. His friends were joking they should get a room, and it wasn’t long before William took Kate back to his quarters.”

Although it was William who broke the relationship off, he’s doing the chasing now. A friend says, “William hasn’t stopped pining for Kate since they split up. He keeps saying she’s an amazing girl and the best thing to happen to him. He’s definitely serious about getting back together.”

Kate, though, is said to be showing a little reluctance, asking if this is what she really wants. She’s certainly got the psychological advantage over the lovelorn Prince.

The friend also said, “Kate’s not really a rebound sort of girl and William remained the great love of her life. … she know that if they do get together, there’ll be no turning back. There will have to be an engagement and then marriage.”

With William reported to be leaving the Army in early 2009, what price a summer Royal wedding a few months later?

Probably the wedding with the greatest number of ill omens was that of Amadeo, the Duke D’Aosta of Italy, to Princess Maria del Pozzo della Cisterno in 1867. It is hard to imagine a longer list of catastrophes.

The wardrobe mistress hanged herself and, for some unknown reason, the palace gatekeeper cut his own throat (no small feat in itself). Then the colonel leading the wedding procession collapsed from heat exhaustion and the king’s aide fell from his horse and died from his wounds.

After the wedding, a stationmaster was crushed to death under the wheels of the honeymoon train. And, presumably in despair at all these goings on, the best man shot himself. It sounds as though suicide was all the rage in Italy at the time.

You would think that all this might augur badly for the future of the couple and so it proved. The Princess soon found that her new husband had an eye for the ladies and little idea of fidelity; her complaints to the king were ignored, it being suggested that the behavior of the Prince was no business of hers.

In 1870, Amadeo was elected king of Spain, only to find himself without popular support and unable to prevent uprisings by various political factions. He abdicated in 1873 and went back to Italy. Poor Maria della Cisterna died in 1876, perhaps worn out by the Prince’s turbulent lifestyle.

“My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather’s mistress, so how about it?”

Those are the words that Camilla Shand (later Parker-Bowles) supposedly spoke to Prince Charles the first time she met him. I don’t know if it is true, but it ought to be if it isn’t, because it’s a great line.

Camilla’s great-grandmother was Alice Keppel, wife of Colonel Hon. George Keppel. Alice conducted several affairs with prominent men, always increasing her social status. Alice met Albert Edward, the future King Edward VII, in 1898. He was 56. She was 29. Despite a 28-year age difference, she became his mistress and remained so until his death.

It was said that Alice knew how to cure the King’s moods and she was an accomplished bridge player, which appealed greatly to Edward. Although he had another mistress, Agnes Keyser, at the same time as Alice, Alice was the one who kept him in good humour.

It was Alice that the king’s wife, Alexandra, allowed to visit his bedside when Edward lay dying. Although Alexandra disliked Keppel’s annual appearance at the Cowes regatta, she did appreciate her discretion. When Edward asked for her on his death bed, Alexandra reluctantly sent for Alice and allowed her to stay until Edward lost consciousness.

Although Edward had many mistresses it is clear that Alice filled more than just the role of mistress for him. The very fact that it was Alice that tamed his mood swings and who he asked to see before he died shows this. As for Alice, it is unknown how she felt about Edward. One of her daughters was to remark that the marriage of Alice and George Keppel was one that was a “companionship of love and laughter”.

It has been suggested that Alice’s daughter Sonia might have been Edward’s child. Sonia was Camilla’s great-grandmother. Were she Edward’s offspring, that would make Charles and Camilla second cousins, once removed. It seems unlikely though, as Edward never treated her as his child and she was said to greatly resemble George Keppel.

But even so, perhaps there is something about the connection that brings destiny into the marriage of Charles and Camilla.

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The year is 1936. The world is unaware that it is on the brink of a confrontation with evil that will have global implications, yet the rumblings of Hitler’s war machine can be heard as Nazi Germany reoccupies the Rhineland. In the U.S, Bruno Richard Hauptmann is executed for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. Generalissimo Franciso Franco and his troops rise against the government and civil war begins in Spain. Jesse Owens wins the 100 meter dash in Berlin. The British Parliament passes His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, and Edward VIII makes a broadcast to the nation explaining his reasons for abdication:

“I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”

With those words, Edward VIII rocked the world, announcing that he would abdicate the throne he had sat upon a mere 326 days to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee. They married in 1937, just six months later, when her divorce had become final.

What could be more romantic than a King who gives up his throne for the sake of love? For decades, the world was enthralled with what was surely the greatest romance of the twentieth century. But was it really?

Edward VIII (known to the family as David) had displayed a fondness for married women before he met Wallis Simpson. Indeed, he met Wallis through his current mistress, Lady Furness, and his relationship with Wallis began while Lady Furness was traveling abroad. It became clear that he was smitten with Wallis but it never seemed as clear to others that she loved him. In the beginning, her second husband accompanied Edward and Wallis on trips, perhaps giving tacit approval to the relationship from which it seemed he thought to profit as well, once remarking after several drinks that he would be made a “baron”. Later, Wallis would file for divorce from Simpson.

The fact that Mrs. Simpson was a divorced woman was the perceived reason that she was so unacceptable to the public and the government, but it was much more than that. Long before their trip to Germany as Hitler’s guests in 1937, it was rumored that Wallis Simpson had Nazi ties and was a Nazi sympathizer at the very least; at the worst they believed that she might, in fact, be a spy for Germany. MI5 had followed the couple, gathering information on their relationship and it seems the FBI had complied a dossier on Mrs. Simpson as well. Accusations that ranged from her having other lovers to her having chromosonal abnormalities surfaced.

After their marriage, the newly created Duke of Windsor (the title bestowed on him by his brother, now King George VI) and his wife visited Germany as Adolf Hitler’s guests and then settled in France. When Germany invaded, they went to Biarritz and then to Spain and Lisbon. The Duke and Duchess were eventually sent to the Bahamas where he was installed as Governor, a safe and out-of-the-way place for him during the critical war years. The Duke was reported to have predicted that when Hitler had won the war, he would be back in power in England as her leader despite the fact that they would not have him as king.

Living abroad and in near seclusion and for the rest of their lives, little is known of the personal relationship between the two who shocked the world with the announcement of their love. The Duke was occasionally quoted as saying something that was very politically incorrect even for the times. He seemed self-involved and oblivious. They made the occasional trip back to England to attend a Royal funeral or similar event. They had no children.

Were they happy together? Certainly they stayed together and were together until the Duke’s death in 1972. But the intervening years had tarnished some of the brilliant gleam of romance in the eyes of the public and no longer were they enchanted by the story of the King who gave it all up for the woman he loved. In a book titled Dancing With the Devil, author Christopher Wilson alleges that Wallis had a four year affair with the Duke’s consent. In any case, future generations will count it lucky for Britian and the world that Edward VIII abdicated and that a sensible and loyal king sat on the throne during those crucial years of WWII.