Did Britain’s most hated woman actually help save the monarchy?
That’s the provocative question asked by PENNY JUNOR whose sensational biography of Camilla has riveted Mail readers. Here she argues that far from being the mistress who nearly destroyed the Royal Family, she was their salvation
FOR much of the final decade of the 20th century, one story regularly dominated the news across much of the developed world.
It was the unravelling of the marriage between the heir to the British throne, and his beautiful, charismatic princess, Diana. This real-life drama had all the ingredients of a blockbuster: money, sex, betrayal and monarchy.
Month after month, the public was privy to the infidelities, the snippets of life behind palace doors, and even snatches of intimate, late-night telephone conversations between lovers; it was better than the best fiction and it gripped the millions who followed its every excruciating twist and turn.
In the midst of all this was a woman in her 40s: Camilla Parker Bowles, the Prince’s long-term mistress, whom Diana squarely blamed for the failure of her marriage and 15 years of unhappiness.
Her husband, she claimed, had always been obsessed by the woman she called ‘the enemy’ and ‘the Rottweiler.’ He had slept with her the night before their wedding, and the couple had connived to continue their affair behind her back.
Yet whatever Diana may have said — and believed — her claims were false.
Camilla was not the sole reason the royal marriage fell apart, and she and Charles certainly did not sleep together the night before his wedding; there were many other factors that explain what went wrong.
However, there is no denying that the Prince did always love Camilla — in the way, perhaps, that we all carry a torch for our first love — and when the marriage had irretrievably broken down, he did turn to her for solace. By this time Diana had lovers of her own, but she still obsessed over his reunion with Camilla.
Today, Camilla is the Duchess of Cornwall and is what the Prince refers to as ‘my darling wife’, and when you see him with her, you can see why.
Everything about him, from the grin on his face to the relaxed body language, tells you that he adores her, depends on her — she is a strong woman, far stronger than he — and with her in his life, he feels complete, I suspect for the first time.
THEY are a compelling and wellmatched couple, fired by the same ideals, tickled by the same sense of the absurd. They are friends, companions and soulmates, and in the fullness of time, whatever her title, she will be by his side to support him when he becomes king.
How Camilla came to play such a pivotal role in British history is an extraordinary story of human frailty, of love, loss and sadness. There was no simple happy ever after.
Like all stories, over the years the facts have been distorted, either through prejudice or ignorance. And Camilla has never sought to explain her part in it.
So what is she really like? My book, serialised all this week in the Mail, results in part from decades of royal research and numerous contacts.
But for the past two years I have been able to fill gaps in the story by speaking extensively to Camilla’s friends, her family and people who work with her. And I have followed her on official engagements at home and abroad.
I’ve also chatted to her myself many times — I first met her in 1995 — although I’ve never formally interviewed her.
She’s utterly charming to everyone, whatever their age, ethnicity, sexual orientation or importance. If she’s being taken past a receptionist who hasn’t been introduced to her — or a cleaning woman, or a kitchen porter — she will stop to say hello.
She chats to all the familiar reporters and photographers who follow her, always allows them to get the shot they want, and is happy to pull a face, or to be photographed eating a tricky canapé.
This is by no means how everyone in the Royal Family behaves. Camilla has such a twinkle in her eye you feel the world is a better place after a few moments in her company.
The last member of the family who had such a compelling effect on the people she met was the Queen Mother — and there are some people, including Labour MP Frank Field, who think she is rather like her.
In my own view, when history comes to judge her, Camilla will not be seen as the woman who nearly brought down the House of Windsor. I think she will be recognised as the woman who shored it up. After the death of Diana in 1997, Charles was destroyed, his popularity through the floor. Camilla made big sacrifices to rehabilitate him, to support and bolster him — and when they married, she became a sensitive stepmother.
His sons and heirs, William and Harry, could have badly lost their way. There was no certainty that they’d turn into such well-grounded, responsible, likeable young men, or that they’d embrace their unenviable destiny.
Camilla could have driven a wedge between father and sons. Instead, she was the glue that has kept them together.
Those were dark and dangerous times for the institution and for the family, but they have come through them, and so long as Britain continues to want a monarchy, its future will be in safe hands.
She will never be loved universally. Some people find adultery unacceptable in any circumstances, while others are so loyal to Diana’s memory that they will not entertain the possibility that she had
any of the frailties which make us human.
Many people, however, are more forgiving and open-minded. They understand that Camilla came into Charles’s broken marriage when he was in despair, and gave him something to live for again.
It obviously wasn’t an ideal scenario, but the Prince wasn’t the first person to have made a mistake in marrying the wrong woman, and he won’t be the last.
He Had tried hard to make diana happy — harder, I suspect, than many people would in the same situation — but he failed, and he will live with that sense of failure for the rest of his life.
Camilla is warm, she’s funny, she’s friendly and she’s fun to be with. When things go pear-shaped she doesn’t panic or allow others to panic around her.
Her first instinct is to laugh, and that has been her saving grace through the years of heartache.
She’s also a terrible giggler. When you see that twinkle in her deep blue eyes, you know she’ll be up for anything.
To the surprise of everyone who knew her before she married the Prince of Wales, Camilla has turned into a formidable worker and a very serious advocate for women, unafraid to put her name to issues such as rape, sexual violence and domestic abuse.
SHE has done extraordinary work for the National Osteoporosis Society — a cause she is particularly passionate about as her mother died from the disease. She is also tackling the widespread problem of illiteracy and encouraging people of all ages to read and enjoy books — something she herself has done since childhood.
The advantage of coming to the role later in life is that she has nothing to prove.
She is a grandmother, she is not jostling to make her mark in the world, to look 30 years younger, or to steal the limelight, so no one feels threatened or intimidated by her. You need spend only two minutes in the flesh with Camilla to understand what Charles sees in her.
Intellectually, he will be the best prepared heir who has ever ascended the throne — he is cultured, well- informed, welltravelled, well- read, and he knows more about how people live and work in Britain than most politicians.
He has spent the past 40 years heavily involved in everything from architecture and inner city deprivation to inter- faith dialogue, the rural economy and conservation. He’s not afraid to put his head above the parapet if he thinks he can be of use. But emotionally he is less robust.
Camilla will give him the strength and confidence to do the job.
Before she came back into his life, in the dying days of his marriage, he was lonely, depressed and angst-ridden, under-appreciated for his tireless charity work, and widely despised for his infidelity.
Today he is happy, laughing and fulfilled. That makes him a better prince, a better father and a much more productive and popular figure.
and when the time comes, it will make him a confident, capable and, I believe, much-loved king.
Without her, there might have been a very different outcome.
There are no longer calls, as there once were, for Prince William to leapfrog his father when the Queen dies. The debate is focused on Camilla’s title, not on the Prince of Wales’s moral authority to reign.
The question, however, is whether, when the time comes, Camilla will be a real queen.
Clarence House has always maintained that when Charles accedes to the throne, the duchess will be known as Princess Consort. This was initially said at the time of their 2005 marriage to pacify those who were so hostile towards Camilla — but even now, although the mood in the country has changed, there has been no change in the official line.
Ultimately, it will be up to Charles, in consultation with others. The title taken by the wife of the king is not a matter of law, it is established through custom and practice.
I have little doubt that Charles is so proud of Camilla, and so grateful for everything she has done for him and sacrificed for him, that he will insist she gets the full title.
Friends and family know it is not something she wants — she has said as much. She is in this position because of her love for the man, not because of her desire to be anything more than a support to him.
The whole business of his accession is something she dreads and, in her inimitable way, is choosing not to think about.
LOOKING at the duchess today, valued for her work, successfully juggling her roles of duty and family, beautifully presented, and stepping out serenely beside a much, much happier Prince Charles on the world stage, it is easy to forget just what she went through to achieve this.
The pain of the past, the emotional damage wreaked by all those years as a figure of hate, worrying about the wellbeing of her children, living on her nerves, have taken their toll.
Her family also worry that she hasn’t properly processed the grief of her brother Mark’s death from a fall three years ago. They feel there’s a side of her that’s trying to hold everything together, because she fears that if she allows the smallest chink in the armour, the entire suit will shatter.
at least one member of her family doesn’t want her to become Queen for fear of a backlash.
They told me: ‘I think it would be better for her if she became Princess Consort. I do so want her to be all right. and I do worry that she won’t be. Between diana and the Queen is quite a hard place to be. People might go a bit wild.
‘It’s going to be such a shake-up. I fear for them both.’
By whatever title she is known, I have no doubt that Camilla will be the strength behind the crown and do her husband proud. and I suspect history will be a kinder judge of their story than their contemporaries have been.