Prince Charming

He may be 6 feet 2 with eyes of blue and a future fortune estimated at more than a billion, but Prince William Arthur Philip Louis has had more than his share of bad heir days lately. First, there was the fuss over the big bash his granny, Queen Elizabeth II, is throwing at Windsor Castle this Wednesday, which also happens to be William's 18th birthday. Reasonable people might see a connection between the two events. But, as it turns out, William says he won't attend. The official excuse: he'll be holed up in his room at Eton (about a 10-minute walk away) studying for an exam the next day. So now the party will celebrate the birthdays this year of his great-grandmother the Queen Mum (100 on Aug. 4); his great-aunt Princess Margaret (70 on Aug. 21); his aunt Princess Anne (50 on Aug. 15), and his uncle Prince Andrew (40 in February). Which leaves gossips

wondering: could William's no-show be a big dis of his spectacularly dysfunctional extended family?

Then there was the embarrassing dust-up over 14 candid photos that Prince Charles's press office arranged for release last week as a way of stopping paparazzi from exploiting William's coming of age. Turns out someone (it's not clear who) forgot to secure copyrights to the images, leaving open the disturbing possibility that carefully selected shots of William at work and play could end up on mugs, tea towels and God-knows-what-else. It was all resolved in a very civilized manner, but Charles's press secretary resigned in the aftermath.

A few days later, the tabloid News of the World printed unauthorized (although harmless) pictures of William at Eton, breaking a deal the royal family struck with the press after Princess Diana's death that placed William and his brother, Harry, off-limits. To top it off, a poll released June 12 showed that support for the royal family has fallen to its lowest level in modern times. Even more ominous, another poll found that three out of four young people would rather live in a republic than a monarchy.

As a wise man once said, a crown is just a hat that lets the rain in. It's hard enough to turn 18 if you're a regular bloke trying to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life. But imagine the burden on William's young shoulders. He has to save the beleaguered British monarchy. This is, after all, a family that, in the last century, ruled a good chunk of the world, giving birth to the amazing claim that the sun never sets on the British Empire. In fact, the sun did set, long be- fore William was born, and his grandmother has presided over a land of much diminished expectations for the sovereign. His father, Prince Charles, has spent much of his adult life in waiting; he won't become king until the queen dies, and she's a healthy 74. Given the long lifespan of the Windsor women, Charles's tenure could be brief. William is "really the great hope of the future," says Hugo Vickers, a royal historian. "He's got the heritage of his mother and his father. He could unite the two factions."

With a smile disarmingly like Diana's and his father's sense of duty, William has the makings of a thoroughly modern monarch. As befits a 21st-century prince, he's being introduced to his future subjects through the media, with the release of the birthday photos and an accompanying video and interview. Although he's still very young and no one knows what challenges he'll face, imagery clearly will have to be a top priority. The pictures tell the story of a young man equally at home on the rugby field or in front of a computer. He's a leader, but also one of the boys, and seems remarkably comfortable in his own skin. It's a very different image from the stiff and formal portraits of Elizabeth and Charles at the same age.