Camilla keeps Prince charming
Charles’ soulmate silences critics by just being herself.
Tomorrow the House of Windsor will mark two anniversaries — its centenary, and the 70th birthday of the Duchess of Cornwall. George V changed his family’s surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha owing to antiGerman feeling during WWI.
A hundred years on, the Windsors are enjoying high public esteem — not least down to how the Prince of Wales appears to have been rehabilitated in the hearts and minds of the British people, many of whom disdained and blamed him after the death of his first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, almost 20 years ago.
Camilla has been central to that rehabilitation simply by being herself.
She often accompanies Charles on public engagements, but also in her own right as patron of charities covering a range of issues from cancer care to animal welfare, she seems regarded as charming and fun.
She has become a conduit for those seeking Charles’ support for causes or ideas, and exercises her judgment to see he gets involved, or comes to the “right” conclusions when his backing is sought.
Camilla is nothing like the “scarlet woman” caricature manufactured by those angry at what they consider to have been her part in ending the Prince’s first marriage. Her friends and staff know that Charles’ transformation from national pariah is largely down to her.
This was not the result of a publicrelations campaign: it was thanks to Charles being married to someone who makes him happy.
The talk — always ridiculous — of the throne passing directly to Prince William was commonplace but is rarer now. She has made her husband a more relaxed, genial figure.
“You must never forget it is a real love match,” said one of the Prince’s friends. “He has changed hugely because he is at ease with himself. And he is at ease entirely because of her.”
The Prince remains demanding and he shares his father’s salty vocabulary in expressing his displeasure but the atmosphere around him and his household is nothing like the walking-on-eggshells grimness of the 90s.
“I think there were some days in the 90s when he found it hard to go on,” a former courtier says.
“The newspapers would be full of Diana’s latest revelations about their marriage, and he had to do yet another visit to some Prince’s Trust scheme. It was only his sheer professionalism that drove him on.”
It is said Charles and Camilla were attracted to each other in the 70s because they laughed at the same things. A picture earlier this month of them chortling while listening to Inuit throat-singing in Canada showed they retain that bond. “She is entirely genuine. She likes a drink and a smoke,” says an old friend.
“The Prince has become much more human because of her,” a courtier said. “He’s always been able to see the absurd in any situation, and she shares that. What they both rather like is humour that verges on the crude.”
The Duchess had one piece of good fortune that her husband seems to have been denied — being nurtured by a down-to-earth and loving family. Although well-to-do, her parents were not grand, and snobbery was not part of their outlook. Camilla “is completely un-grand”, a friend notes, “and treats everyone as an equal.”
It is perhaps because of her devotion to their father that she enjoys cordial relations with her stepsons, Princes William and Harry. The former Camilla Parker-Bowles also had the benefit of coming into the Royal Family in her late fifties, with a maturity and worldly wisdom denied most brides of an heir to the throne.
She enjoys her charity work, especially for causes about which she feels strongly. Her staff love working for her, and she inspires unconditional loyalty.
Public sentiment at the time of their marriage in 2005 weighed against her being titled, as custom and practice would have it, the Princess of Wales. Her acceptance into the Royal Family was not least down to the superlative and sensitive efforts of one of the Prince’s former private secretaries, Mark Bolland, who masterminded her detoxification after the calumnies of the Diana years.
Camilla is believed to be unconcerned about what she is called after her husband’s accession to the throne. His friends believe he cares that she should not be discriminated against by being denied the title of Queen.
The decision about whether the Duchess becomes Princess Consort when he is King, or Queen Camilla, will be Charles’.
—
Camilla “is completely ungrand”, a friend notes, “and treats everyone as an equal”.
Sunday Telegraph