The middle-class rose set to be Queen

LONDON (Reuters) - Kate Middleton, the daughter of middle-class, self-made entrepreneurs, went from friend to lover when living with the future King, Prince William, at University.

But months of fevered speculation by royalty-obsessed tabloids over when one of the world's most eligible bachelors would tie the knot ended in disappointment on Saturday when they unexpectedly split up.

William and Kate shared a house as students at St. Andrews University in Scotland. From there, romance blossomed.

"They were able to get to know each other quite uniquely -- they had four years together away from the royal circus. They lived a normal kind of life. They started as friends which has to be the best recipe," said royal biographer Penny Junor.

But the pressure of courting before the ever inquisitive lenses of the paparazzi became a constant strain when Middleton moved down to London.

In a poignant echo of Princess Diana's courtship with heir to the throne Prince Charles, she was constantly hounded outside her London apartment by phalanxes of photographers.

But royal watchers believed Middleton was better equipped to handle the media pressure than Diana, who divorced Charles in a bitter split and was killed in a Paris car crash in 1997. Paparazzi were pursuing her in a high-speed chase when she died.

Born on January 8, 1982, Kate is the eldest child of Michael and Carole Middleton, who became millionaires running Party Pieces, a mail order firm supplying party accessories.

The epitome of genteel Middle England, they live in a five-bedroom house in the heart of the countryside in the county of Berkshire.

Kate was educated at private schools, ending at co-educational Marlborough College where she was said to be a popular girl who excelled at sports like field hockey.

Media speculated that her mother, a former air hostess, purposefully steered Kate into the same university as William -- but these accusations of blatant social climbing have never been confirmed.

At St Andrews, she was famously photographed wearing sexy lingerie at a charity fashion show where an admiring Prince William paid for a front row seat.

They shared a luxury farmhouse with two other housemates on the outskirts of the seaside town famed for its golf.

Romance was able to flower aware from the unrelenting media spotlight that followed William's mother to her death.

But by April 2004, she was openly skiing with William, his father and his brother Harry on their annual trip to Switzerland, sending the paparazzi into a feeding frenzy.

Tabloid rumours of an imminent engagement reached fever pitch in December 2006 when she attended the graduation at the elite Sandhurst military academy of William -- 2nd Lieutenant Wales -- who she said looked "so, so sexy" in his uniform.

Her family joined the royals for lunch afterwards, a sure sign that the House of Windsor, which has reinvented itself more times than pop star Madonna, was ready to admit this elegant commoner into the tight-knit ranks of "The Firm".

Royal biography Robert Lacey said "Kate is a good, solid middle-class girl and there is every chance we are going to have our first middle-class queen since Anne Boleyn -- but maybe that is not such a good precedent."

Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry VIII. He accused her of treason and had her beheaded in the Tower of London in 1536.

But, as Hello Magazine correspondent Judy Wade concluded, maybe Middleton "realised the awful burden she would have taken on. It's a life sentence marrying a royal."