We could do a lot worse than Camilla as our Queen

The Christmas card released by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall shows the royal couple looking as we have never seen them before. Normal. happy. Relaxed. In the charming image, the usual layers of protocol and pomp have been stripped away. The cares of royal office, the weight of history, the pressures of being public figures? All of this is crumbles to dust in the relaxed atmosphere of their summer holiday in Scotland.

What is left is an adorable snapshot showing how Charles and Camilla look when the world isn’t looking. This is how they see themselves: their arms flung around each other’s shoulders, their eyes shining with the pleasure of companionship, each of them happy in the security that being loved and being in love brings.

And in one romantic swoop, in a single blazing image, the card makes it obvious how Princess Diana was the wrong woman for the Prince of Wales — and how Camilla is so very much the right one.

In the 15 years or so that Diana and Charles were together, there is barely a single photo that endures of the couple where they don’t look ill-at-ease and awkward with each other.

They had two children together; there may even have been a time when they were deeply in love with each other. But every image shows them looking less like husband and wife and more like a slightly appalled bishop being forced to babysit a highly strung showgirl, who is testing his patience mightily.

In images and camera footage, there was always a tenseness, an atmosphere, a prickle of discontent that threatened to explode into full-blown hostility at any moment. Which is eventually, of course, exactly what happened.

By contrast, here we have Charles and Camilla, casually dressed and holding each other close. They look just like the happy ‘Fred and Gladys’ they like to call each other: just another couple of sixtysomethings enjoying the rest of their lives together.

Ten years ago, the publication of such a photograph would have been unthinkable. Twenty years ago, had such an image slipped into the public domain, it would have caused a national riot.

Back then, the wounds were still too raw. Diana was the Wronged Woman, while Camilla was the other Woman. Indeed, Camilla was almost a hate figure, with little public sympathy extended towards her.

This seemed rather unfair, given that the Prince of Wales was the key figure in the disastrous marriage-a-trois that was being played out behind the scenes.

much — though not all — of that antipathy has diluted over the intervening years. The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall have come a long way since courtiers worried that when they exited St George’s Chapel on the day of their wedding in 2005, the crowds gathered outside in Windsor would start booing.

Certainly, later that year, there was a sharp intake of breath when Camilla wore the Delhi Durbar Tiara to her first royal dinner at Buckingham Palace.

Created for Queen mary to wear to the celebration of her husband’s coronation in India, it was lent to Camilla by the Queen, as is traditional among the royal ladies. yet for the new Duchess of Cornwall, it was deemed too crown-like, too regal: too much, too soon.

Now, everything has changed. And with the publication of the most intimate image we have yet seen of the Cornwalls, has she taken another step closer to becoming Queen Camilla?

Some say that the British public would never accept such a state of affairs ( certainly there would be dissenting voices). That such a scarlet woman as Camilla — a cigarettesmoking, fox- hunting, husband-snatching, Diana-thwarting dervish — would never be appropriate in such a prominent constitutional position.

But to be honest, I think we could do a lot worse. At least with Camilla, we know what we are getting.

She and Prince Charles are obviously a devoted couple, and perhaps history will not judge them too harshly — particularly not in the way that the fervent Diana-devotees still do.

Is it not the case that Charles and Camilla are just another man and woman who each married the wrong person and paid a heavy price for it before they could marry the right one? millions go through the concertina of unhappy marriages and love mismatches before they can find their soulmate, without having to worry about protocol, lineage, bloodlines or succession in a way that Princes of Wales once did.

Can I glean all this f rom one innocent little Christmas card?

yes, I can, particularly in a world where it seems the prospect of Queen Camilla is not as far-fetched this Christmas as it was last Christmas.

Above all, I love the romance of their story, this tale of a lovelorn prince and the ‘non-negotiable’ woman he couldn’t live without. It all goes to show that if you hang on in there, sometimes true love will conquer all and you can live happily ever after.