Prince William of Gloucester - Personal Life

Personal Life

Shortly before transferring to Tokyo in August 1968, William was examined by an RAF physician, Dr. Henry Bellringer, at the request of the Prince's mother. William told the doctor that he had suffered from an illness of unknown aetiology, with fever and cutaneous hepatic symptoms, beginning in December 1965 and lasting several months. He had subsequently noticed that his skin was prone to a blistering rash, particularly on exposure to sunshine. Dr. Bellringer tentatively diagnosed porphyria, prescribed sunblock cream and gave him a medical warning card regarding the need to avoid certain medications. Although he was aware of the theory of the royal family's history of porphyria then being proposed by Professor Ida Macalpine and Dr Richard Hunter, he stated he "tried not to let it influence him...with all the symptoms, I was left with little option but to diagnose the Prince's condition as porphyria." William was later examined by haematologists at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge and also by a Professor Ishihara in Tokyo, both of whom also concluded he was suffering from variegate porphyria, by then in remission.

A member of the British Royal Family being reliably diagnosed with porphyria subsequently added credence to the theory–first proposed by Professor Macalpine in the late 1960s–that porphyria was the source of the ill-health of both Mary, Queen of Scots (an ancestor of both of William's parents) and of George III and that the disorder had been inherited by some members of the Royal Families of Great Britain, Prussia and several minor German dukedoms and principalities.

It was also while in Tokyo that William met a Hungarian-born divorcee named Zsuzsi Starkloff, and though he reportedly loved and wished to marry his seven-years older girlfriend, the Royal Court forbade the union because the former Mrs. Starkloff was previously married. In royal circles, Starkloff was known as 'the new Mrs. Simpson," as in Wallis, who married William's uncle, the former King Edward VIII. The prince's old schoolfriend, Giles St. Aubyn, recalled the relationship: "She was witty, intelligent, attractive. William sparkled in her company. But the relationship overshadowed everything else. It resulted in a period of great anguish for him, for it involved him in disagreements with his friends and family."

Despite the pressure from his family to end the relationship, the couple continued seeing each other until his tragic death in 1972.