Where there's a Will...

WEARING a black robe with a cherry-coloured lining, Prince William will tomorrow kneel before Sir Kenneth Dover. To the words "et semper te", Latin for "and upon you", Sir Kenneth will tap the future king on the head with a piece of cloth said to be a fragment of breeches belonging to the Scottish firebrand preacher John Knox.

So a chapter in the young prince's life will come to an end. His graduation from St Andrews University, at the hands of the university chancellor and watched by his father, stepmother and grandparents, will bring his four years on the Fife coast to an end.

Like the other 1,400 students graduating tomorrow, Prince William, 23 yesterday, will now be looking at what to do next as he makes the transition from academia to the outside world. But unlike them, while he may not have a student debt to worry about, he has instead the burdens of a senior member of the Royal Family awaiting him.

For the prince, his future is complicated in that many of the paths open to his fellow students are virtually closed to him. His 2:1 degree in geography may make him the high-achiever of the Royals, but it is hard to imagine the second in line to the throne taking up an office job.

And on top of this he has the media interest to cope with. During his four years at St Andrews, the Press observed a gentleman's agreement to let the prince study in peace, provided he was occasionally available for managed interviews and photo calls. The only serious breach of this agreement came when William's uncle, Prince Edward, despatched a television crew to the university town.

Now his studies have come to an end, William can expect the gloves to be off. When he leaves the 600-year-old Younger Hall tomorrow he will be entering a new phase of public interest in, and scrutiny of, his actions.

But it is impossible to predict how this will develop, because this is a situation without precedent, according to Martin Farr, senior history lecturer at Newcastle University.

"We have never had such an attractive royal before, and we have never had such a competitive media culture," he says. "We have 24 hour news and the Internet and competition between newspapers and magazines, and the culture of celebrity has never been as big as it is now. We really are in uncharted waters."

In the short-term, William is heading to New Zealand, to watch the British and Irish Lions play the All Blacks as the Queen's official representative. Later in the summer, he is expected to travel, perhaps to Africa where he may carry out work with Aids charities.

After that, the military looks the best option. William has already spoken of his interest in joining the Army, and may follow his brother Harry to Sandhurst, probably in January next year. In doing so, he would continue a long tradition of royals serving in the armed forces, with the added advantage in keeping him away from the media's prying eyes and providing natural security, last week's newspaper "break-in" at Sandhurst notwithstanding. Here, Dr Farr sees a parallel with William's uncles, with one brother bookish and sensitive and the other brash and adventurous.

"In very simple terms, you could think of Harry as Andrew and William as Edward," he says. "And the Army will be a bit like St Andrews in being out of the spotlight, and after his degree this is rounding him off quite nicely."

While some may see the end of the agreement with the Press as a cause for concern that William could now suffer the same intrusion which sometimes blighted his mother, there is no reason why the voluntary ban should continue, says Philip Young, journalism lecturer at Sunderland University and a specialist in media ethics.

"Why should there be protection for him? He is 23 and the subject of considerable legitimate interest," he says. "It is not easy to think of somebody with anything like his profile at the age of 23 who benefits from an agreement. I'm sure Wayne Rooney would love one."

He sees a clear distinction between William and Tony Blair's children. Although both are in the public eye because they are somebody's son, or daughter, for William that position brings both privileges and responsibilities which make him a public figure in a way the Blairs' children could argue they are not.

"Of course there will be media interest in William, and it will depend on how he conducts himself. Everybody is aware that there is considerable responsibility on his shoulders and some of the things his younger brother has done have proved quite graphically that is the case," he says.

But although there may be still some vestiges of the restraint which came in after Diana's death, he believes William can expect few favours now his St Andrews days are coming to an end, particularly where girlfriends are concerned.

The identity of the future Queen will obviously be of huge public interest, and William's university romance with Kate Middleton, whom he met in his first year and with whom he's shared a house for the past two years, has already prompted speculation that marriage could be on the cards, speculation William was keen to quash earlier this year when he said he would not think of getting married until he was "28 or 30".

But one of the results of the gentleman's agreement is that little is known about William, and this is a gap the public are keen to see filled, Mr Young believes.

"We haven't really got a good sense of what he is like, and I think he will now pay the price of that," he says. "It is something people have not been able to pursue, and now they can they will.

"But if there was no interest in him, what would that say about the future of the monarchy? They can't have it both ways. He can't be a figurehead without a public profile."

The only boundaries on media interest in the young prince, believes Dr Farr, will be those of taste, the same taste which reacted against pictures of Diana leaving a gym in the mid-1990s.

He says William may get an easier ride than Harry, partly due to the innate respect for the heir to the throne and partly because he is seen to have earned it, but he cannot expect the sort of restraint which characterised his years at St Andrews, and at Eton before that.

"I really think there will be an enormous amount of interest, although there will be a lot of sympathy for him because of his mother, and if the Press goes too far the public will recoil," he says.

A career in the military will also have the advantage of ensuring William is not constantly seen enjoying himself at public expense, and is instead performing a duty for his country.

There is the danger he will not prove up to it, like his uncle Edward, and drop out, although presumably every effort will be made to ensure this doesn't happen, and William is probably a keener sportsman than Edward.

And life in uniform will also help deflect demands for William to take up more of a public role. At 23, both his father and grandmother were veterans of public events, but William has largely been kept away from this and has spoken of his desire not to shoulder his share too early.

But this still does not amount to the sort of protection William was afforded in St Andrews. Just as he leaves one stage of his life behind to embark upon another, so he will enter a new world of media interest in his life.

"He will be the biggest celebrity story in town," says Dr Farr. "It will go on until he gets married, and even then it won't stop. The interest in his private life will be almost all-consuming, and it will be not just in this country but international. People will w ant to see him."