Prince Edward’s former girlfriend has today released a tell-all memoir, outlining the details of her previous relationship with the late Queen Elizabeth’s youngest child.West End star Ruthie Henshall is known to have had an on-and-off relationship with Edward several years prior to him meeting his wife Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh. Ruthie’s book, titled The Showgirl and the Prince , documents their romance, starting with its secretive beginnings and visits to Buckingham Palace, to having tea at Windsor with the late Queen.The pair met while they were both working for Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1988, with Ruthie describing their relationship as her first love.‌After five years together, the couple split amicably. It is said the pair remained good friends after they broke up, as Ruthie even attended Edward and Sophie’s wedding at Windsor Castle in 1999.While some snippets of the book have been shared, the memoir is released in full today, and one royal expert believes both Edward and his wife Duchess Sophie will be looked at sympathetically, as the secrets from behind Palace walls are shared with the public.Former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond told the Mirror: “Everyone has to make their own decision about revealing details of past love affairs. Personally, I feel sorry for Edward and Sophie having to see these headlines and read these stories from so long ago.“They have a loving and solid marriage, but no-one needs extremely intimate details like this raked up from an earlier relationship. I think the King and everyone in the family will feel a great deal of sympathy for Edward and Sophie.”‌Jennie, who was working as a royal correspondent at the time of Edward and Ruthie’s relationship, said that in the late 1980s, most royal watchers were too swept up with the relationship of then prince Charles and Diana, leaving Edward and Ruthie to fly under the radar.She said: “The big news of the day back then was always Diana and Charles, so not much attention was paid to Edward.“There was media interest in the fact that he’d quit the Marines and decided to try to make a career in entertainment, working for Andrew Lloyd Webber and there were rumours that he was going out with someone from that world.”‌“But his love life wasn’t a big news story,” she continued. “We were all too bound up with Charles and Diana. It obviously wasn’t surprising that a young man should have a girlfriend, but – beyond vaguely knowing her name, I knew nothing about Ruthie Henshall. Until now.”Ruthie, a five-time Olivier winner, claimed that she had been inspired to write the book after finding boxes of memorabilia as she cleared out her garage five years ago.‌She said of the memoir: "I found old diaries which I began writing in the 1980s and then found all my letters from Prince Edward, and I was struck by how precious this time in my life was. I was on the West End stage - my dream since I was a girl - and shared a love with a man very few people even know."If this was someone else’s story, I would think they had made it up. So here it is - a look behind the curtain of a crazy life in musical theatre and what happens next when a showgirl falls in love with a prince."