kate00.jpgUK Prince William of Wales and his commoner girlfriend, Kate Middleton, may become engaged sometimes during this year. And now Middleton is making news outside of Britain. Prince William has been urged to hurry up and propose to Kate Middleton — because he’s wrecking her life

William’s stepmother, Camilla, remains a duchess after his father, Prince Charles, assumes the throne, Middleton could be the next queen.

It is a 4-5 probability the pair will announce their engagement in 2007, and is offering 3-1 odds they will marry this year.

The prince and Middleton have dated since they were both students at St. Andrews University in Scotland, and were first photographed together on a skiing holiday shortly before their graduation in 2005.

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Kate Middleton born in the commuter town of Reading, west of London, Middleton – unlike most previous royal consorts – is a quintessentially middle-class Englishwoman. Her father worked for an airline and her mother was a flight attendant; they now run a mail-order business specializing in children’s parties.

She attended Marlborough College, an elite private school, where she played tennis and field hockey, before studying art history at St. Andrews. She and William shared a student house in the seaside university town.

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Despite denials of a pending William-Kate engagement by Buckingham Palace, a team of body guards is guarding her at home and escorting her to work and while clubbing in London because of pesky paparazzi.

And last month, in her most prominent public appearance since they met five years ago, Middleton and her family were invited to the ceremony for William’s completion of officer training at Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy.

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UK tabloid and magazine gossip editors are already foaming at the mouth in anticipation of comparing Middleton to William’s late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Juliet Herd, features editor of the British celebrity magazine Hello!, praises Middleton as “a modern princess along the new European-style model.”

American royals watcher/biographer Kitty Kelley predicts Middleton is so stylish she could become “a real staple in People magazine.”

Middleton and Diana are different in significant ways.

Diana was much younger, less experienced, less worldly wise and Kate is 4 years older than Prince William and has been given training on how to deal with press scrutiny.

Doubts Middleton will capture the public imagination the way Diana did almost immediately.

It’s true that she’s very stylish, pretty, smart, much more educated than Diana and of a savvier generation. But unlike Diana, she doesn’t combine the qualities of vulnerability and flirtatiousness. “She sees the press, especially the paparazzi, in a much more adversarial way.”

Middleton is higher educated than Diana.