YOU King Charles III - Commemorative edition
MY DARLING WIFE
Camilla is the great love of Charles’ life, but it was decades before they could enjoy their romance in public
THERE are two versions of what was said when Camilla was introduced to Charles at a polo match in Windsor in 1970. One is that she said to him, “Oh, you know your great-great-grandfather and my great-grandmother were lovers. How about it?”
The other is that Lucia Santa Cruz, Camilla’s friend and Charles’ former lover who introduced the pair, told them, “Now you two be very careful because you’ve got genetic antecedents – careful, careful.”
Those ancestors were Alice Keppel and King Edward VII, who had a steamy affair that produced an illegitimate child.
But it really doesn’t matter who said what to whom – what matters is that this meeting triggered the spark for one of the most fascinating and controversial love stories in the history of the royal family.
Charles can be grateful he’s a product of the modern world. If this had been 100 years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to get divorced and remain in line to become king. He would never have been allowed to marry Camilla, a divorcée.
If history hadn’t taken the course it did,
Diana might well still be alive and their miserable marriage could still be plodding relentlessly on. Instead, the world has seen deep unhappiness, terrible tragedy – and a king finally at peace with his queen.
Camilla is everything Diana wasn’t: uncomplicated, down to earth, independent, go-with-the-flow.
“Camilla never complains, she never explains,” a source told Vanity Fair in 2018.
“She’s not an intellectual, but there’s nothing lightweight about her. She’s not a bulls ***** r either and she doesn’t take any bulls***.”
Camilla has made Charles a much
happier man, royal expert Roya Nikkhah says. And because of this, she’s gradually become accepted by the royal family and the public.
“She cares about some really important things and I think people have slowly seen her less as the evil, cruel, mistressin-waiting and more for the woman she is,” royal biographer Angela Levin says.
“Which is someone who loves the king and is a great companion for him.”
But oh, the rocky road they’ve walked to get to this point.
CHARLES was smitten with Camilla from the word go. “He loved the fact she smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth and laughed at the same silly things as he did,” royal author Penny Junor says in her book The Duchess: The Untold Story.
“He also liked that she was so natural and easy and friendly, not in any way overawed by him, not fawning or sycophantic.
“In short, he was very taken with her and after that first meeting he began ringing her up.”
Things got intense pretty quickly and Charles wooed her with “elaborately worded love notes” and late-night phone chats, royal biographer Jonathan Dimbleby says.
“He thought about proposing, but was hesitant about taking the next step. Charles played his cards close to his chest and realised he was too uncertain of his feelings to ask Camilla to marry him.”
Charles also knew his parents wouldn’t approve of their relationship – and he was right, said his late godmother, Patricia Knatchbull. “It wouldn’t have been possible, not then. Camilla had a history – and you didn’t want a past that hung around.”
Six months later, Charles left England with the Royal Navy and would be away in the Caribbean for seven months. Many hoped that would be the end of the romance because Camilla was considered unsuitable for the future king.
“She had no royal lineage in her blood and she was wasn’t a virgin,” royal biographer Chris Wilson says.
“Back in the early 1970s, as weird as it seems, we wanted to have a Princess of Wales who’d never been to bed with anyone else.”
But there was also the matter of Andrew Parker Bowles, a dashing, rather caddish army officer who had dated Charles’ sister, Princess Anne, before turning his charms on Camilla.
She might have been enamoured with Charles, but she was in love with Andrew – and the prince was in the Caribbean with his fleet when he learnt the woman he’d lost his heart to was going to get married.
“It seemed to him particularly cruel,” Junor says. “He wrote in one letter that after ‘such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship’, fate had decreed that it should last a mere six months.” Yet they remained close and Camilla even asked Charles to be godfather to her first child, Tom.
Not long after, their affair resumed and it became an open secret among the British upper-class country set. Even Andrew knew about it.
“The English aristocracy like to serve their royal family,” Wilson says. “And Andrew Parker Bowles was prepared to lay down his wife for his country. It was perfectly okay.”
At the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday ball in the summer of 1980, the pair were intertwined for most of the night, much to the annoyance of his grandmother.
A few weeks later, the prince and the Parker Bowleses were among the guests at the Cirencester Polo Club ball, where Charles spent the evening dancing with Camilla and kissing her.
“His Royal Highness is very fond of
‘He loved the fact she smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth and laughed at the same silly things as he did’
my wife,” Andrew reportedly said to a friend. “And she appears to be fond of him.”
Charles saw Camilla frequently after he married Diana, sneaking out to visit her while his bodyguards kept a discreet distance.
Ironically, Diana liked Camilla at first and thought she was friendly, warm and easy to talk to. But her feelings changed quickly.
“I met Camilla very early on,” she told biographer Andrew Morton.
“I was introduced to the circle, but I was a threat. I was a very young girl, but I was a threat.”
By 1989, the “Camilla problem”, as Diana called it, was all-consuming. At a party to celebrate the 40th birthday of Camilla’s sister, Annabel, Diana confronted her rival.
“I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that,” she said, as recounted by Morton.
“Camilla said to me, ‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world to fall in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children. What more do you want?’
“So I said, ‘I want my husband. I’m sorry I’m in the way – it must be hell for you both. But I do know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot’.”
BY 1992 Diana and Charles had separated. Four years later they were divorced, as were Camilla and Andrew. Charles set about gradually trying to ease his lover into public life and the royal family – but it was anything but simple. And his toughest critic, as royal author Tom Bower says, was at home.
Charles went to Balmoral, where his mother and other members of the royal family were on their summer holiday, to try to persuade the queen to change her mind about Camilla.
But Her Majesty was unyielding. “She forcefully told him she would not condone his adultery, nor forgive Camilla for not leaving Charles alone to allow his marriage to recover,” Bower says.
“She vented her anger that he’d lied about his relationship with what she
called ‘that wicked woman’ and added, ‘I want nothing to do with her’.”
Then Diana died – and Charles, fully aware of the public sentiment, knew he’d have to temper his attempts to be seen out and about with Camilla.
As far as the grieving world was concerned, Diana would still have been alive if it hadn’t been for Charles and Camilla and they were vilified by the public. People even threw bread rolls at Camilla in a supermarket when she was shopping for groceries, Bower says.
In a 2017 interview with The Mail on Sunday, Camilla describes that time as horrid. “It was deeply unpleasant and I wouldn’t want to put my worst enemy through it.”
But Charles loved her and she loved him. She knew if she was going to win the hearts of the people, she’d need to give it time. And she needed to work hard and show them the kind of person she was.
She devoted herself to charity work, including osteoporosis organisations, literacy enterprises and campaigns to end sexual violence.
A year after Diana’s death, Charles introduced her to his sons and she tried hard to foster a relationship with the vulnerable young princes without being too pushy, a friend says.
In 1999 Charles and Camilla appeared in public for the first time as a couple when they threw a 50th birthday party at the Ritz in London for Camilla’s sister, Annabel.
And then, in 2000, the thaw they’d so desperately hoped for finally arrived. The queen had steadfastly refused to be in the same room as Camilla and didn’t even attend Charles’ 50th birthday party because she knew “that woman” would be there.
But when an invitation was extended to the queen to a reception at Highgrove, Charles’ country estate, for King Constantine II of Greece, she accepted.
“Queen Elizabeth finally agreeing to meet her son’s partner was a huge step forward for the royal family and
public relations,” a palace insider says.
Yet it was still only a crack in the frozen pond. When Charles and Camilla finally wed on 9 April 2005 in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall, the queen and Prince Philip did not attend.
“Charles was inconsolable,” Bower says. His mother and father did, however, go to a service of prayer and dedication at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle afterwards.
And the newlywed prince’s heart must have soared when his mother rose to toast her son and daughter-in-law. The Grand National, the biggest race on the English steeplechase calendar and a favourite of the queen, had been delayed by 25 minutes so the BBC could televise the St George’s service.
Her Majesty referenced the race straight away in her speech to the wedding party. “I have two important announcements to make: the first is that Hedgehunter has won the Grand National,” she said, before comparing Charles and Camilla’s relationship to the infamously difficult terrain of the steeplechase track.
“They have overcome [notorious jumps] Becher’s Brook and The Chair and all kinds of other terrible obstacles.
“They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.”
CAMILLA’S metamorphosis from reviled mistress to “my darling wife”, as Charles calls her, is one of the royal family’s greatest success stories, royal expert Katie Nicholl says in Vanity Fair. Winning the queen over was one of her biggest triumphs.
“The monarch enjoyed a warm relationship with her daughter-in-law and forged a bond over their mutual love of dogs and horses,” Nicholl says.
Camilla also did two things the queen held most dear: dedicated herself to duty and devoted herself to her family.
And when the queen announced that it was her “sincere wish” that Camilla would become queen consort after the monarch’s death, she showed her acceptance of and love for her daughter-in-law.
“There was no inevitability about the duchess becoming queen consort,” Patrick Harrison, who worked in the press office at Clarence House for 14 years, told Nicholl. “I’m personally thrilled for her because she’s worked so hard and hasn’t put a foot wrong. She would say, ‘I do it because I love the boss; it’s my job to be there by his side’.
“She’s absolutely devoted to Charles and to the institution and takes her role and duties seriously. She understands the benefits and challenges that go with that.”
Junor says Camilla transformed Charles.
“He’s happier with her than he’s ever been. She gives him confidence and the support he so desperately needed throughout his life and never truly found elsewhere.”
The couple have a lot of fun together and are often pictured in gales of laughter. Junor describes them as a “compelling and well-matched couple”.
“They’re fired by the same ideals, tickled by the same sense of the absurd. They’re friends, companions and soulmates.
“Everything about Charles, from the grin on his face to his relaxed body language, tells you he adores her and depends on her.
“She is a strong woman, far stronger than he, and with her in his life he feels complete.”
Public sentiment for Charles and Camilla has risen steadily over the years. Royal fan Janet Ratcliffe (75), one of hundreds of thousands of people who came to London to pay their respects to the queen after her passing in September 2022, says after the unpleasantness of the Diana era she believes the monarchy will thrive under Charles and Camilla.
“People were very sad when Diana died and it was very traumatic. I thought Camilla was the baddie.
“But I’ve come to realise that it’s more complicated than that. They care about each other and they can do good for the country.”