Can Prince William break the royal mould?

The royals are in strife again. Grumpy Princess Anne is rude to a pensioner, playboy Prince Andrew cavorts with bikini-clad beauties, fox-hunting Prince Charles angers animal rights groups, ailing Princess Margaret pays the price for years of hard drinking and smoking ... And the tabloids predict yet another annus horribilis for the Queen.

People familiar with the glory days of George VI and the earlier part of the Queen's reign, when royalty was beyond reproach, must be wondering what has gone wrong with the House of Windsor.

They should not be too surprised.

The stable reigns of Kings George V and VI (forgetting the Duke of Windsor debacle in between) represent a blip in the history of a royal family that over the years has been dogged by sexual excess, intellectual shortcomings, waywardness and a wide variety of scandals.

Had the mass-circulation tabloids been around in earlier times it is possible the monarchy might have had trouble surviving into the 20th century.

Not that the royals have always escaped criticism. Eighteenth and early 19th-century cartoons lampooning the randy Prince Regent (later George IV), his wife and mistresses reached an extraordinary level of cruelty. Even the upright Queen Victoria had her detractors. The republican movement threatened the stability of the throne during part of her reign and she herself survived several assassination attempts.

But perhaps the most constant theme during the past 240 years has been what could loosely be called the curse of the firstborn.

From the Prince Regent to Prince Charles the eldest son in every generation has found himself up to his neck in trouble.

George III, who himself went famously mad, despaired of George, the Prince Regent. And with good cause. From the age of 16, when he lost his virginity, the young prince embarked on a life of such gluttony and debauchery the King complained that every day it was "almost certain that some unpleasant mention of him could be found" in the newspapers. Not even an informal "marriage" to his favourite mistress, Maria Fitzherbert, could curb the younger George's wandering eye. In an effort to slow him down and provide a legitimate heir, George III decided to marry his errant son off - legally, this time - to a German cousin, Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel. He could not have made a more unfortunate choice.

George and Caroline loathed each other on sight. He found her coarse and malodorous. She found him "very fat." So reluctant was the groom to consummate the marriage, he spent his wedding night lying on the floor in a drunken stupor with his head in the fireplace. Needless to say, the marriage soon foundered (he locked Queen Caroline out of his coronation) but not before he had overcome his distaste to the extent of fathering a child, Princess Charlotte, who died in childbirth.

As George IV had no legitimate heir, the crown passed to his equally dissolute brother Prince William who died seven years later having also failed (despite having fathered 11 bastards) to produce a successor. Of the remaining brothers, only the Duke of Kent, after ditching his long-time mistress, was able to come up with legitimate issue - the girl who would become Queen Victoria.

Although, in terms of morality Queen Victoria and her consort, Albert, were squeaky-clean, her eldest son most certainly was not.

From an early age, Edward, Prince of Wales, known to his family as Bertie, proved a bitter disappointment. He loathed lessons. He threw tantrums. He bit, spat and scratched. Compared with his brilliant elder sister, Vicky, he was a dullard, interested in nothing much at all.

But at the age of 19, when he began an affair with an actress, Nellie Clifden, Bertie found his true calling - as a womaniser and bon vivant. In doing so, he devastated the Queen, who believed that worry over his "disgraceful" behaviour contributed to her beloved Albert's death.

Of Bertie, she said: "I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder."

Although later softening her stance, she never fully trusted the heir to the throne, and refused to involve him in the affairs of state or provide any real training for his future role.

Meanwhile, the flamboyant Bertie, having married the beautiful but somewhat dull Princess Alexandra of Denmark, went on his merry way. Like his great-uncle, the Prince Regent, he had a gargantuan appetite for food, drink, sex and the high life. That he eventually made a surprisingly good fist of his brief stint on the throne owes much to his prodigious energy - he threw himself into his role with gusto - a gift for diplomacy, and an ability to inspire such affection that those around him were prepared to overlook his dissolute habits.

Alas, none of Edward's more acceptable characteristics were inherited by his son and heir. Indeed, Prince Eddie demonstrated the curse of the firstborn male at its most potent. Limp, languid, dim-witted, and almost certainly bisexual, he was frighteningly malleable and thus easily led into activities of which his grandmother Queen Victoria certainly would not have approved - among them, membership of a men's club which ran a male brothel. Fortunately, he succumbed to pneumonia (some suggest syphilis) at the age of 26 before he could do any damage to the throne.

Shortly before his death Prince Eddie had become betrothed to Princess Mary of Teck who, being a serious-minded young woman and prepared to do her duty for England, recovered from her grief sufficiently to marry Eddie's young brother, the straitlaced George, and become the mother of another firstborn washout, the infamous Edward VIII, later the Duke of Windsor.

Much has been written about the duke and the infatuation with American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson that led to his abdication. Although he precipitated a constitutional crisis, many people at the time saw something heroic in a man prepared to give up the throne for the woman he loved. These days, however, biographers take a more jaundiced approach. They view the royal dropout as an irresponsible and shallow Peter Pan, an intellectual lightweight who never grew up and whose dependent, possibly masochistic nature craved dominance from a strong woman - something bossy Wallis Simpson was obviously well qualified to provide.

With the departure of Edward VIII, a man palpably unsuitable for kingship, the monarchy escaped disaster for a second time. But in so doing it received an unexpected boost. For despite his stammer, lack of confidence and shocking temper (known to his children as "gnashes") George VI, with the help and support of Queen Elizabeth, established the kind of kingly leadership and stable family life that became the model against which today's royals are judged.

It is tempting to wonder what King George would have thought of the present heir to the throne. Would he consider the Queen's eldest son to have inherited the curse of the firstborn male? Certainly, as a loyal husband, he would have been appalled by Charles' marital faithlessness, and the whole sordid Diana, Princess of Wales, Camilla Parker-Bowles mess. Undoubtedly, he would be saddened by the current lack of public confidence in his grandson as a future monarch.

However, history has shown that just when scandal or an unsuitable heir threatens the monarchy a royal saviour comes to the rescue.

Queen Victoria put an end to the licentiousness that characterised the reigns of her Hanoverian forebears and imbued the crown with new respect. Decent, down-to-earth George V stepped into the breach created by the demise of dissipated, weak-willed Prince Eddie. When Edward VIII threw in the towel, shy George VI, took on the top job with a courage and dedication that won the admiration of all who knew him.

And now - enter Prince William. Could it be that the firstborn of Prince Charles and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, has broken the mould, that this good-looking, intelligent, unassuming young prince has not only escaped the curse but is actually the royals' best hope for the future? Certainly royal-watchers see him as just that. So far, Prince William has been untainted by scandal. So far, he is the tabloids' darling. For the sake of the monarchy, he needs to stay that way.