The course of true love
Charles and Camilla may have shared a true love, but their romance was certainly not smooth sailing...
The Spring day that Charles and Camilla finally married, 35 years after they first met, coincided with the Grand National. The Queen, who had a horse running in the steeple chase, could not resist making a joke about this in her speech at the reception.
She began by saying she had two announcements to make. The first was that Hedgehunter had won the race at Aintree; the second was that, at Windsor, she was delighted to be welcoming her son and his bride to the winners’ enclosure.
‘They have overcome 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,’ she quipped.
And indeed, the happy couple had faced many hurdles on their way to the altar. Back in 1970 at a polo match, Charles met Camilla Shand, the daughter of an uppermiddle-class army officer. Some reports claim that Camilla’s first line to Charles was, ‘My great-grandmother was the mistress of your greatgreat-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.’
Quickly, they formed a relationship. Camilla was outdoorsy and fun-loving and Charles was soon besotted. But the Palace didn’t consider Camilla suitable future Queen material – most notably because she had had a number of relationships, including an on-off romance with army officer Andrew Parker Bowles, something of a Home Counties heartthrob.
Then a naval officer, Charles went away to sea, and in 1972 he was shocked to discover that Camilla was engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles.
It seemed particularly ‘cruel,’ he wrote in one letter, that after ‘such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship, fate had decreed that it should only last a mere six months.’
Charles wrote, ‘I suppose the feeling of emptiness will pass eventually.’
Camilla and Andrew married in 1973 and went on to have two children – Tom and Laura. Camilla and Charles remained close – with Charles being honoured as Tom’s godfather.
And in 1981, Charles married Lady Diana Spencer, who had just turned 20. In the run-up to the
wedding, Diana is said to have become jealous of Charles’ closeness to Camilla. According to Royal biographer Andrew Morton, Diana was devastated when she found an engraved bracelet intended for Camilla while opening wedding gifts. Supposedly, Charles told Diana that ‘a certain amount of time would always be put aside for Camilla’. Although Charles insists he was faithful to Diana initially, the marriage went sour quite quickly. In a 1991 interview, Diana described Harry as a ‘miracle’ and ‘a complete joy’ to her life, but said his arrival in 1984 had marked a point when her marriage to Charles went ‘down the drain’.
As has been well documented, Diana went on to have several extra marital affairs of her own, but her knowledge of Charles and Camilla’s closeness always haunted her .
It was in 1989 that Diana was said to have confronted Camilla at a party. In an audiotape made for Andrew Morton, she reports that she said to her: ‘“I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that.” She said to me: “You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all the men in the world in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?” So I said, “I want my husband.”’
In 1994, Charles appeared on a television interview When asked if he had been ‘faithful and honourable’ to Diana, he said, ‘Yes, yes... until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.’ When asked about Camilla, he said, ‘She has been a friend for a very long time—and will continue to be a friend for a very long time.’
In 1992, John Major announced in the Commons that Charles and Diana were to separate.
It was in 1993 that an extremely intimate phone call between Charles and Camilla was made public. It left no doubt that they were involved in a sexual affair. And at the start of 1995, Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles announced their divorce after living apart for at least two years.
Later, in 1995, during an interview with BBC One’s Panorama, Diana expressed her bitterness saying, ‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.’
Diana, of course, was to die in a car crash in 1997. In the wake of the tragedy, Camilla kept a low profile. It was not until 1999 that Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance at a party for Camilla’s sister at the Ritz in London.
In 2000, Camilla met the Queen for the first time, and in 2003, she moved into Clarence House with Charles.
So 35 years after they first met, in February 2005, Charles and Camilla announced their engagement. And on 9 April, Charles and Camilla tied the knot at a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. Prince William was the best man. The Queen and Prince Philip did not attend the ceremony, but they were at the reception and official blessing at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.
Finally, Charles and Camilla found their happy ever after.