Every step of the way

Future of the monarchy: special report

The story was undoubtedly eyecatching: "Prince William to work on Argentine ranch." After months of seemingly inexhaustible and often contradictory exclusives claiming to map out the future monarch's career path, the Sunday Telegraph had managed to come up with something a little bit different.

The essential details were as follows. When he leaves Eton next summer, William will spend a gap year in Argentina and Australia, working on sheep and cattle stations, before returning to Britain to attend university, but not Oxford or Cambridge. The Prince of Wales, it continued, had asked Edward van Cutsem, the 26-year-old son of his close friends Hugh and Emilie, to accompany the young prince, and the request had, it goes without saying, been accepted with delight.

In the last six months we have had William planning to join the parachute regiment; William going to take a gap year to work for Spink and Co, the London war medal dealers where he has spent time on work experience; William shunning Oxbridge for either Bristol or Edinburgh universities. While one paper was detailing the prince's globe-trotting adventure at the weekend, one of its rivals was revealing how the 17-year-old plans to sign up for the SAS after a spell in the Welsh Guards.

Whichever of these stories proves true, if indeed any do, the facts of William's future endeavours may be less important than the identity of those who will accompany him throughout. The very fact that the Van Cutsem name featured so prominently is further proof that there are few families closer to, or more trusted by, Charles. In the sprawling, double-barrelled world of royal insiders and confidantes, they lay the strongest claim to the apparently hereditary title of Best Friends by Appointment to Heirs to the Throne.

The family's credentials are ideally suited to the task. Hugh van Cutsem is an ex-Life Guards officer, a Norfolk bloodstock breeder, member of both the Jockey Club and White's. Emilie is famously strong-willed, and willing to speak her mind to Charles, even if he is not too pleased to hear what she has to say. But most importantly, they are masters of discretion.

Despite being the son of champion trainer Bernard van Cutsem and a renowned breeder in his own right, little is known about Van Cutsem in the racing world beyond the most basic of facts. Similarly, he was a founding member of the Countryside Movement, chairman of the Countryside Business Trust and was the only pro-bloodsports candidate elected to the council of the National Trust last year after it introduced its ban on stag-hunting, yet anti-bloodsports groups know virtually nothing about him. Trust executives refer to him cheerfully as a "pretty good trustee".

As a result, their influence on first one, and now another, generation of future monarchs has often been overlooked. Media attention has inevitably focused on the more high-profile members of Charles's set: the likes of Charles and Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, his regular skiing companions, or former Tory minister Nicholas Soames. But trawl through every important event in the lives of Charles and his sons over the past 10 years and there will almost certainly be a Van Cutsem in there somewhere.

When Charles and Diana married, Edward, then eight, was one of their two pageboys and the couple spent their wedding night at the Van Cutsems' Norfolk estate, Northmore. And when the prince's affair with Mrs Parker Bowles later became public knowledge, it emerged that they had had trysts in a house rented on the Sandringham estate by the Van Cutsems.

Charles's relationship with Hugh van Cutsem goes back a long way - so far that the millionaire stud owner tells people he cannot remember how they first met. What is certain is that it was while Charles was at Cambridge that they became close friends, even though Van Custem is seven years his senior. The common denominator is a passion for rural life in general, and field sports in particular; Van Cutsem is widely recognised as one of the finest shots in the country.

The Van Cutsems' deliberate lack of public profile contrasts with the family image of Charles's other close friends, the Palmer-Tomkinsons. The point is not missed by some more cynical observers who suggest that there is even an unspoken but deep-seated rivalry between the two households for Charles's attentions.

With William and Edward van Cutsem, history appears to be repeating itself. Although Van Cutsem is almost a decade older, they are close companions, Edward even being described as an honorary elder brother. That impression is reinforced by a photograph taken during a winter trip to Balmoral five years ago, in which Van Cutsem is dangling Prince Harry upside down over an icy stream in revenge for being caught in a snowball ambush by the young princes.

But it is now, as William metamorphises from awkward schoolboy into dashing society pin-up, that Charles is keenest to make the most of his son's relationship with van Cutsem. In 1997, Mrs Van Cutsem, described as a "self-appointed substitute mother" to the princes, attempted to warn Charles about the company his fast-maturing eldest son was starting to keep. It was the sort of advice which any concerned close friends would give to a parent, but the result was a cooling of the relationship between Highgrove and Northmore. The prince, it appeared, took Emilie's advice as interference.

Two years on, the picture has changed dramatically. When Camilla Parker Bowles' son Tom found his drug use and fast living exposed in the tabloids, there was a huge fuss because he was known to be close to William. Charles, who told friends he was "fraught with worry" about the influence of William's "London set of friends", has entrusted the introduction of the prince into society into the hands of the Van Cutsems.

The strategy has its dangers. It was Edward's idea for William to make his most high profile, and most controversial appearance to date, as surprise guest at the Cartier International Polo Tournament in July. The surprise almost backfired when newspapers focused on William chatting with Victoria Aitken, daughter of disgraced former cabinet minister Jonathan. Nevertheless, Charles maintains absolute trust in Edward.

"Hugh and Emilie raised their sons in a very traditional fashion," one society insider said yesterday. "As a result, they are all very straight, a bit square."

"Since his mother died," said another, "there has been a long line of people claiming to be William's best friend and confidante. But Edward is the honorary big brother that Charles would choose for William. Whether that means William sees him in the same light is another question entirely."

The story has raised eyebrows for other reasons, she added. "You have to wonder why a 26-year-old would want to give up his job to trail around the world looking after somebody almost 10 years younger than him. What's in it for Edward?"

The answer is simple: he is assuming the hereditary role his father laid out before him. So one thing is certain. Whatever path William chooses to follow when he leaves Eton next June, the Van Cutsems will be behind him every step of the way.

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