As he turns 18 this week, the king-in-waiting with the fairy-tale looks shoulders his real-world burdens. The Queen wants William to rescue the monarchy. The tabloids want him to stir up scandal. Society girls just want his number. But what does William want?

It's a lot to expect of a boy from a broken family who's just about to turn 18. But the fate of the monarchy, and perhaps more importantly of the British tabloids, is riding on Prince William Arthur Philip Louis's success in what is probably the world's most ill-defined job: king in waiting.

With his reliably front-pageable mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, nearly three years dead, and outrage over his father Prince Charles's affair with Camilla Parker Bowles down to a dull roar, only lanky, blond, six-foot-two William can endow the monarchy with the star quality the palace and the press both desperately crave.

"Young people don't care a thing about the monarchy," said Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage. "The interest is just not there. And how do you get that interest? The answer is William."

When William turns 18 on Wednesday, it means the end of the press's tacit agreement with the royals to go easy on him. This is the week the media's kid gloves -- and paparazzi lens caps -- come off. Already, this past week, papers and TV screens have been filled with features on the young prince, while no fewer than three ugly spats broke out in the media over access to his picture.

Jeremy Tunstall, who teaches media studies at London's City University, said that drops in sales have forced papers here to be increasingly aggressive in going after "promiscuous" readers, who switch loyalties according to front-cover flash. In this media-saturated country, with eight daily newspapers in London alone, that means that the tabloids have trouble behaving themselves at the best of times, and find it next to impossible when it comes to William.

"The first time he goes out with a girl, there will be hysterics," said Tunstall.

"William obviously represents an opportunity and a huge risk," said Nicholas Sparrow, managing director of ICM, a British polling firm that recently found only 44 per cent of Britons believe the country would be worse off without the royals, compared with 77 per cent a decade or so ago. "The opportunity is to wipe the slate clean. But he has to find a role that will be different from his mother and his father. Otherwise, he will simply become a victim of the media."

William's appeal was perhaps most graphically announced when he visited British Columbia with his father and brother Harry on a ski holiday two years ago, prompting scenes of hysteria from hordes of teenage girls, worthy of the Beatles or the Backstreet Boys.

While contact with girls at all-boys' school Eton is strictly forbidden, that doesn't stop him from meeting them elsewhere, as at last summer's Cartier Polo match or the fashionable London dance clubs he has frequented lately, such as K-Bar in Fulham Road and Kabaret in Soho.

His name has been linked with a bevy of eligible, young society girls. He has been photographed sitting next to Alexandra Aitken, daughter of the former Tory cabinet minister who served time in prison for perjury, and Davina Duckworth-Chad, an attractive 21-year-old who was on a cruise with the prince though the Greek islands last year. (Her mother is Diana's first cousin, which may make a match a little close for comfort.)

In fact, though, most of these matches are simply the figment of the press's overactive imagination. In February, the Sunday Express reported that Isabella Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, a gorgeous 20-year-old at Edinburgh University with a good pedigree, had formed a "close bond" with William and was tipped to be his wife. The only problem was that, according to her father, the young couple had never actually met. Following a complaint from Mr. Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe, the tabloid was berated by the Press Complaints Commission for not bothering to check the truth of the article.

William learned early on how nasty the tabloids can be. At the age of three-and-a-half, while at an exclusive nursery school near Kensington Palace, he was branded "Billy Basher" after reports that he had roughed up his fellow classmates and threatened to send them to his tower. Later, age 8, when he was caught crying during a family-winter holiday in the Alps, the press called him "Willy the Wimp." When the paparazzi descended on the family on the ski slopes, the young William begged photographers to "leave my Mommy alone."

But William has begun to look more relaxed during recent photo shoots, notably during a family ski holiday in Switzerland this spring, when he slung an affectionate arm around his Dad and bantered with the photographers about skiing being "great fun."

That tranquillity is not likely to last, with a series of press feuds breaking out (between such organs as the BBC, private station ITN, The Daily Telegraph and News of the World) over rights to rare videotape and photos of the prince playing sports at Eton. The chairman of the Press Complaints Commission has resorted to pleading with the press to respect the Prince's privacy at school, even though he is officially coming of age.

The occasion will be marked by a lavish party at Windsor Castle that also celebrates the Queen Mother's 100th birthday, Princess Margaret's 70th, Princess Anne's 50th and Prince Andrew's 40th. The young prince himself is unlikely to make more than a cameo appearance. He'll be down the road at Eton College, doing some last-minute cramming for an exam the next day in History of Art.

Eton has been a refuge for William since he entered it at age 13. The cosseted atmosphere has shielded him from his parents' feuds and allowed him to excel, particularly in sports, and especially swimming. Even there, of course, he is not entirely isolated from adoring fans. Charlie Dewhirst, a former Eton student who lived in the same house as William, recalls the young prince receiving tons of mail, particularly at Valentine's Day. "They would write for no reason and would send photos and all sorts of things," he said.

But his privacy will be harder to protect at Edinburgh University in Scotland, where, bypassing more traditional choices such as his father's alma mater, Cambridge, William is expected to study art history in 2001. (Although he finishes at Eton this month, he will likely delay university to take a "gap year," probably doing volunteer work somewhere abroad.)

Anthony Holden, unauthorized biographer of Prince Charles, speculated that there's politics behind the choice of schools. "They want to shore up Scotland, which is gradually seceding." But Tunstall called the decision surprising. "It's the headquarters for drugs in Britain, along with Glasgow."

Keeping William clean of drugs is obviously a major concern. Drug busts occur periodically among the privileged students at Eton, and there has been concern expressed over the influence over William of jet-setters such as Lord Frederick Windsor, Camilla's son Tom Parker Bowles, and Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, the glamorous daughter of some of Charles's best friends. All have had well-publicized cocaine habits.

Historian Andrew Roberts says the chances of William dabbling in drugs are low. "The Prince's own sense of self-respect, his common sense and respect for his father, not to mention his ever-present detectives, are quite enough to protect him from the danger of indulging in narcotics abuse," writes Roberts.

"His reportedly strong Windsor libido, however, might provide other embarrassments."

Although his looks and bashful smile remind everyone of his mother, William has inherited the love of outdoor pursuits from his father. Reportedly a crack shot, the left-handed prince is learning to play polo and has participated in fox-hunting, attracting controversy at a time when it faces a possible legislative ban over allegations that it encourages cruelty to animals.

"Since Diana's death, there has been an absolutely ruthless Windsorizing process -- eradication of all traces of Spencerdom," said Holden.

But even among the Windsors, there have been battles for William's loyalty. The Sunday Times reported last week that Queen Elizabeth has been peeved by how infrequently she sees her beloved grandson -- amid speculation that Charles was using his sons' time as a bargaining chip in getting his mother to make peace with Parker-Bowles.

The Times's sources reported that Elizabeth positively dotes on William. "She sees William as a steady and serious future monarch and is very confident in him," one said, in contrast to her own children, whom she sees "rushing to be relevant and making a hash of it by trying to do too much."

In fact, though, what William ultimately does with his life remains an open question. Under the Regency Act, he can legally sit on the throne alone once he turns 18. But with his grandmother still going strong at 74, it could be another 20 years until his father become king and still another 20 years beyond that until William accedes to the throne.

Monarchy expert Brooks-Baker says the chances that Elizabeth will abdicate before her death are nil, but he thinks it's possible that Charles could step aside when his time come. "If the Queen were to die today, I believe he would not have an anointing ceremony at the coronation, and he would then step in a few years' time in favour of his son. If the Queen lives as long as I think she will, 80-year-old Prince Charles will probably say, 'I don't want to be king. I'm too old.' "

The question then will be whether William himself is eager to take the throne. "Given the story of his life, which has been almost entirely his parents' public warfare and confessions of adultery, will he actually want to do a job which he has seen cripple his father and kill his mother?" says Holden. "It's a miracle he's not a gibbering wreck."

PRINCE WILLIAM: A TIME LINE

June 21, 1982. Born Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Mountbatten-Windsor of Wales at St. Mary's Hospital in London, 9:03 p.m. He is the first future King of England to be born at a hospital.

Sept. 24, 1985. Starts Mrs. Mynors's Nursery School in Notting Hill, West London.

Jan. 15, 1987. Is enrolled at Wetherby School, in Notting Hill.

Sept. 10, 1990. Sent to Ludgrove, a boarding school in Wokingham, Berkshire, where he shares a dorm with four other boys.

June 3, 1991. Is admitted to Royal Berkshire Hospital after being hit on the side of the head with a golf club and diagnosed with a depressed fracture. Surgery required, but Royal records show he is very brave and does not cry.

Dec. 9, 1992. Prime Minister John Major announces William's parents' separation in the House of Commons. The Princess informed her children of this privately a few days earlier.

Sept. 6, 1995. Enters Eton College, where he still lives with some 50 other students in an ivy-covered dorm called Manor House. The only student with a private bathroom.

Oct. 23, 1995. Attends his first dance, La Fiesta Ball, a bash for 1,000 private-school students at London's Hammersmith Palais dance hall, sparking a heated debate in the press about whether such behaviour is appropriate for an heir to the throne.

Aug. 28, 1996. Prince Charles and Princess Diana are officially divorced.

Sept. 10, 1996. William named one of the Top 10 Best Dressed celebrities by People Magazine.

Aug. 31, 1997. Princess Diana killed in a car crash in Paris. Prince William helps to make the arrangements for his mother's funeral. Some say it is his idea for Elton John to sing Candle in the Wind.

May 11, 1998. Named one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People of 1998.

July 29, 1999. Passes driving test on first attempt. The London police officer who taught Prince William the ways of the road says the teenager has a "natural flair" for driving and needed just 20 hours of expert instruction.

June 21, 2000. William celebrates 18th birthday at Windsor Castle.