CAMILLA WILL BE QUEEN SAYS TOP AIDE
THE Duchess of Cornwall will become Queen Camilla when Prince Charles accedes to the throne, one of the monarch’s top official representatives has said.
Before Charles and Camilla wed in 2005 the Palace insisted she will have the title of Princess Consort instead of Queen Consort.
This was in recognition of public concern about the break-up of Charles’s first marriage to Princess Diana and his adultery with Camilla.
But despite the Royal Household’s assertions, Charles Anson, who worked as the Queen’s press secretary for seven years before leaving Buckingham Palace in 1996, has predicted it will be Queen Camilla.
Privately, some royal aides have always admitted that Charles wanted Camilla to be his Queen.
And they hoped the public would slowly warm to his second wife.
Philosophy
As a Deputy Lieutenant in East Sussex, Mr Anson represents the monarch in the county and helps organise royal visits.
He praised the Duchess, 71, as someone who “kind of jollies” her husband and “doesn’t let him get too overburdened by the woes of the world”.
In an interview for a US documentary about the Royal Family, made by People magazine for the ABC channel, the former Buckingham Palace aide, said: “She’s got a good philosophy about life.
“There are things you can change and other things you can’t change – don’t get too hung up about it.
“And I think she’ll be a great consort as Queen.”
For 1,000 years the wives of English kings have been known as queen, although a consort holds no constitutional power.
In March royal officials fuelled speculation that they were trying to back out of their original 2005 commitment.
They were found to have deleted all references to the Consort statement from the Clarence House and Buckingham Palace websites.
Several statements were removed, including one from the Duchess’s official biography which said: “It is intended that The Duchess of Cornwall will use the title HRH The Princess Consort when The Prince of Wales accedes to the throne.”
Cynics have pointed out that after Diana’s death, Charles sought to allay public anger over his relationship with Camilla by saying it was his intention never to remarry.
However, in November 2010, in an interview with US channel NBC, Charles was asked if Camilla would be Queen. He replied: “We’ll see, won’t we? That could be.”
And in the same year an eightyear-old girl asked Camilla: “Are you going to be Queen one day?” She replied: “You never know.” Camilla, whose friendliness and sense of fun have endeared her to the royal press pack, has worked hard to support Charles.
Last year she undertook 235 official royal engagements.
But she remains less popular with the British public than many other members of the Royal Family. A Norstat opinion poll for the Sunday Express in August last year found that 67 per cent of the British public did not want Camilla to be Queen. Just 19 per cent believed she was fit for the role.
And a series of TV documentaries last year – in which Princes William and Harry and others discussed Princess Diana to mark the 20th anniversary of her death – were not thought to have helped Camilla’s cause.