By Bridie Pearson-jones For Mailonline
10:52 08 Mar 2024, updated 10:55 08 Mar 2024
These days, Prince William is rarely discussed without mention of his wife, Catherine.
The Prince and Princess of Wales, will celebrate their 13th wedding anniversary next month, after more than 20 years together.
But shortly before he met Kate, while studying at St. Andrews, William dated society beauty Rose Farquhar.
Now in her40s, the singer-songwriter Rose is generally considered the Prince’s first serious girlfriend.
The pair dated in 2000, after meeting at the Beaufort Polo Club in Gloucestershire after the future King finished his A-levels at Eton.
Rose, is the youngest daughter of Captain Ian Farquhar, the former master of the Beaufort Hunt, who has died aged 78.
Mr Farquhar was a renowned huntsman and longtime friend of King Charles. He died at the Highgove Estate.
He was also the Queen Mother‘s equerry and even served in the Queen’s Own Hussars, a cavalry regiment of the British Army.
Mr Farquhar was also close with Queen Camilla, living on the King’s estate for many years in a rented farmhouse. It is said that he died there on Wednesday morning.
Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles, first husband and friend of Camilla, told the Mail’s Richard Eden that the situation was ‘very sad’ and that he had been in poor health for the past few months.
He described his friend as ‘wild as a hawk in his youth, but always great fun’. Parker Bowles added that ‘The Captain’, as Farquhar was known, will be ‘judged by history as one of the great Master of Hounds’.
William will likely now be around to support his father and old friend Rose.
Despite their romance faltering, Rose and William have always stayed on good terms and have often seen each other at society weddings over the years due to their mutual friends.
In 2022, William attended Rose’s wedding to George Gemmel – the stepson of Barbadian building tycoon Sir Charles Williams and an aspiring vet.
After dating William, Rose headed to New York where she studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute.
She appeared on The Voice in the UK in 2016 singing for Boy George and will.iam, and participated in the reality show ‘How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?’ in 2006, which searched for an actress to play Maria Von Trapp on the West End’s production of The Sound of Music.
Following the programme, she went on to receive a BBC Fame Academy Award to study Musical Theatre and Acting in New York City.
Today, she works for the Duchess of Rutland’s Belvoir Castle in a business development role In December 2022.
Still in society circles, she attended the wedding of William and Kate in 2011, but also that of Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan in 2018.
Farquhar and Charles became intertwined further when Prince William briefly dated Rose Farquhar in 2000 after he finished his A-levels at Eton.
The pair met at the Beaufort Polo Club in Gloucestershire and she was described as the Prince of Wales’s ‘first love’ at the time.
William and Rose would go on romantic picnics in the Gloucestershire countryside together before he met Kate at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
Rose is generally considered the Prince’s first serious girlfriend, with him going on to date several women at university before meeting his now-wife Catherine, the Princess of Wales, in 2003.
When the singer tied the knot last December, Prince William was amongst the guests toasting to the happy couple’s nuptials.
He slipped in discreetly through the back door of St Mary the Virgin church in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, to witness her wed her new prince charming: aspiring vet George Gemmell, the stepson of late Barbadian building tycoon Sir Charles Williams.
At the time, her father told DailyMail of her daughter’s groom-to-be: ‘He could not be a more charming son-in-law for the future.
‘The Gemmells have been friends of ours for years. We’re absolutely delighted.’