While Prince William’s 2007 break up with Kate Middleton left the Princess of Wales devastated, it emerged that he was giving his then-girlfriend a chance to back out from the royal limelight.

Prince William, who knew the ins and outs of the highly publicised lifestyle, had called it quits with Kate after five years together and even though the breakup spanned to only a few months, the heir to the throne did an act of kindness by giving her the chance to “back out”.

Katie Nicholl wrote about the ordeal in her book The Making of a Royal Romance and described it: “William had been having second thoughts and sat down with his father and his grandmother to have a frank discussion about his future with Kate. Both advised him not to hurry into anything.”

The split reportedly disappointed Queen Elizabeth II and even after they reunited, it was not another three years before Prince William popped the question.

When quizzed by Tom Brady on whether his choice to delay the engagement was to give Kate the chance to turn down the royal life William replied, “Massively so.”

“Her and her family, I really want to make sure that they have the best, sort of, guidance and chance to see what life has been like—or what life is like—in the family,” Prince William said. 

He added, “We were sort of both finding ourselves as such and being different characters and stuff. It was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up. It was just sort of a bit of space and a bit of things like that, and it worked out for the better.”

Kate Middleton admitted that while at the time she was not pleased with the break up and delay in their engagement, she was able to grow from it as an individual.

She said, “I think at the time I wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person. You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realized, or I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you are younger, and I really valued that time for me as well, although I didn’t think it at the time.”