Kate Middleton’s first love reportedly “blew hot and cold” before she fell for Prince William.

The Duchess of Cambridge met Harry Blakelock, who is said to have been her first love, at Marlborough College.

A friend said Kate was still hung up on him after graduation and spent a lot of time talking about him to her friends during the early part of her gap year, when she was studying in Italy.

In 2001 she spent three months in Florence, where she was visited by her parents who took her and her friends out for dinner.

But perhaps hurt by her break-up with Blakelock, Kate did not find any romance in Florence, according to the Mail on Sunday.

A friend told the newspaper: “When Kate arrived in Florence, she was really hung up about Harry.

“She spoke about him all the time and he seemed to have messed her around quite a bit.

“He seemed to have blown hot and cold with her when they were at school and she was always talking about how she could get him back.”

The source added Harry was also in Florence at the same time but nothing happened between him and Kate, from what the friend remembers.

In her book Kate: The Future Queen , royal expert and biographer Katie Nicholl, spoke to a friend who said: “He was the only boy she talked about, and I don’t even think it was that serious.”

Harry later married a school friend of Kate’s and is now a senior vice-president at Lockton – the world’s largest independent insurance broker.

Kate met Prince William for the first time in 2001 at university, where he had gone after a gap year following his education at Eton.

They were part of the same social circle as they had enrolled on the same course.

They had plenty of common ground too, having moved into the same halls of residence – St Salvator’s Hall, or Sally’s to its student renters – and found themselves in the same classes and lectures.

Royal author Tom Quinn revealed details of their love story in the documentary William & Kate: Too Good To Be True? which aired on Channel 5.

One of the funny stories the documentary talks about is that Prince William tripped as he walked towards Kate and told her: “Oh that’s a terrible start, you’re going to think I’m a complete clot.”

The pair then became friends and formed a strong bond which then turned into romance.

William and Kate moved in together with two friends in a private home in their second year, which is where love blossomed away from the rabble of shared halls.

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And it was their shared sense of baldy humour that helped them click, as Wills explained during their engagement interview in 2009.

“She’s got a really naughty sense of humour, which really helps me because I’ve got a really dirty sense of humour so it was good fun, we had a really good laugh, and then things happened,” he said at the time.

They married in on April 29, 2011 and now have three children – George, Charlotte and Louis.