William of Gloucester: Britain’s Most Daring Prince You’ve Never Heard O...

How Prince William of Gloucester, the Queen’s cousin and ‘the other Prince William’, became a tragic figure of royal history

 

On the anniversary of his birth, Tatler looks back at the life of ‘the other Prince William’, Prince William of Gloucester whose life ended in tragic circumstances

 

By Tatler

18 December 2025

https://www.tatler.com/gallery/who-is-prince-william-of-gloucester-namesake-of-the-prince-of-wales

 

Born on 18 December 1941, Prince William of Gloucester was the eldest son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott. Prince Henry was the third son of King George V and Queen Mary and younger brother of King Edward VIII (later Duke of Windsor) and King George VI. Lady Alice was the third daughter of the 7th Duke of Buccleuch and Lady Margaret Bridgeman. At birth, Prince William was fourth in line to the throne. His parents welcomed another son, Prince Richard, in 1944.

 

Prince William spent his early childhood at Barnwell Manor in Northamptonshire and later in Canberra, Australia, where his father served as Governor-General. On return to Britain, Prince William was educated at Wellesley House School in Broadstairs, Kent, and later Eton. A keen sportsman, Prince William played both cricket and football. Prince William received a history degree from Magdalene College, Cambridge, before completing a year in political science, American history and business at the prestigious Stanford University.

 

Unlike some members of the Royal Family, Prince William had a close relationship with his parents. ‘She is a human being and she must possess some faults. But so far as I am concerned she has no faults at all,’ he once reportedly said of his mother, while his fondness for his father was once described as ‘infectious’. He is said to have appreciated the freedom they granted him growing up, despite his relative seniority within the family.

 

In 1947, shortly before his sixth birthday, Prince William of Gloucester was a page boy for his first cousin Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) at her wedding to Prince Philip. The other page boy was Prince Michael (another first cousin through his father Prince George, Duke of Kent, who tragically died in a military air crash). In 1953, Prince William also attended the coronation of Elizabeth II.

 

When he returned to Britain, Prince William joined the Commonwealth Office and was posted to Lagos, then later Tokyo. He became the second member of the Royal Family to become a public servant, following his uncle Prince George, Duke of Kent.

 

Prince William never married but had a long-running, highly public relationship with a woman named Zsuzsi Starkloff. Born in Hungary, Starkloff fled to America in her early 20s and made a living as a model and flight attendant. A trailblazer, Starkloff later gained her pilot’s licence and became a flight instructor. A failed marriage to Ed ‘Starky’ Starkloff behind her, Zsuzsi moved to Tokyo, where she crossed paths with the young prince, who dubbed her ‘Cinderella’.

 

‘He was quite a man,’ Zsuzsi, who was five years his senior, reportedly later recounted. ‘Very manly. Very passionate. And mature beyond his years.’ Prince William was smitten and wrote to his parents to ask how they would feel if he proposed marriage. Zsuzsi was deemed ‘unsuitable’. The couple faced resistance from royals, including Queen Elizabeth II, who feared a repeat of the controversy around her uncle King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, or even her sister Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend. Princess Margaret, while not encouraging William, did sympathise with him in this regard, telling him to ‘wait a bit’ and to ‘see how everything looks’ once he returned to Britain.

 

William's diplomatic career was cut short by the failing health of his father, which had become critical after multiple strokes in 1970. William had no choice but to resign and return to Britain in order to take care of his father's estate and, as he put it, take on the full-time job of a royal prince. At the time, far more members of the Royal Family carried out duties on behalf of the monarch and Prince William of Gloucester stepped in to take care of responsibilities on behalf of his beloved father.

 

However, it wasn’t long before his life was cut short. In 1972, while competing in the Goodyear International Air Trophy, the wing of William's plane sheared off after hitting a tree. The out-of-control plane flipped over and crashed into an earthen bank, bursting into flames. The crash happened before 30,000 spectators, the fire took two hours to control, and the bodies were identified at inquest the next day from dental records.

 

Prince William had been the heir apparent to his father’s peerages, Duke of Gloucester, Earl of Ulster, and Baron Culloden. Upon his death, his younger brother Prince Richard of Gloucester became heir apparent, and succeeded to these peerages in 1974.