Royals Camilla walks out; Pippa’s Aussie honeymoon; Kate under fire

The duchess is fed up with being the royal family outsider

She has stuck it out for more than 12 years as a controversial and highly scrutinised member of the royal family. Through it all, the Duchess of Cornwall has been determined to ignore the haters and uphold her public duties.

But last week cracks began to appear as Camilla gave an unprecedented interview in which she revealed the extent of her struggle with life in the public eye.

Insiders say the pressure on Charles’s wife – who is often blamed for the breakdown of his marriage to Princess Diana in 1996 – has been increasing in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death.

And we’re told Camilla is so fed up with the increased scorn she now faces, she’s all but ready to quit the palace for good.

“Sometimes you get up in the morning and think you can’t do it, and you just have to,” Camilla said in the revealing chat. “The minute you stop it’s like a balloon, you run out of puff. You sort of collapse in a heap,” she added.

It was a clear indication that all is not well at Clarence House – and sources say it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This year Camilla has found herself under increasing amounts of scrutiny as her stepsons, Prince William, 34, and Prince Harry, 32, continue a very public campaign to honour Diana.

The princes have given a series of candid interviews talking about how heartbreaking it was to lose their treasured mum in a car accident in 1997 when they were just 15 and 12 respectively.

Discussion of the tragedy, and the build-up to its milestone anniversary in August, are making Camilla increasingly uncomfortable, given the role she play played in Diana’s unhappiness.

‘It was horrid. I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through it’

Camilla became a duchess in 2005 when she married Prince Charles, the man she’d been sleeping with while she was married to Andrew Parker Bowles, and while Charles was still wed to Diana. As a consequence of that infidelity, Camilla did not exactly endear herself to royal fans.

In a first, she’s now revealed just how much that public disapproval affected her life. “It was horrid. I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through it,” the 69-year-old recalls of the time she rekindled her relationship with Charles after Diana’s death.

She admits that for about a year she couldn’t really leave the house. “I would pass the time by reading a lot – more than I’d ever have been able to in a normal life. I thought, ‘Well, if I’m stuck here I might as well do something positive like read all the books I want to read, and try to learn to paint’ – though that wasn’t a huge success – and after a while, life sort of went on.”

Although public feeling towards Camilla has warmed in recent years, sources say she’s always struggled with her position on the periphery of the royal family. And recent events, palace insiders reveal, have pushed her too far.

“I sometimes think to myself, ‘Who is this woman? It can’t possibly be me,’ ” she says, admitting her discomfort with royal duties.

If Camilla had her way she’d be enjoying a peaceful life in the countryside with Charles, cooking scrambled eggs in her dressing gown and kicking back in front of her favourite TV show, Danish crime series The Killing. But instead, her commitment to her husband continues to keep her busy with an exhausting schedule of more than 200 royal engagements a year, including overseas tours.

Although Camilla says she is well practised at the art of “just getting on with it”, the scrutiny of her every move is only set to increase as August approaches and also as Charles moves closer to eventually taking the throne.

While the couple’s marriage has always been strong, royal watchers fear Camilla is ready to choose freedom – and a life free from judgement – over the love of her husband.

Now, as her stepsons, together with William’s wife Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, continue to fight for the memory of Diana and her legacy to live on, palace insiders are fearing for the worst, and they’re certain that it’s only a matter of time until Camilla calls it quits.