What this picture tells us about Camilla’s quiet triumph
ALL over the world yesterday, that birthday photograph of Prince Charles and his family was being analysed with both affection and fascination.
On the Clarence house Twitter account alone, the comments that poured in from every corner of the planet fixed on the warmth and happiness that radiated from the smiling faces.
Certainly with its juxtaposition of three future kings and one — possibly two — queens in waiting, it offered an intriguing glimpse of the future. Taken barely three months after Prince harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle, the picture is also eloquent testimony to the enthusiasm with which the American former actress has been welcomed into the royal fold.
Above all, it shows three generations of royalty all very comfortable with one another which, considering the journey they have undergone to reach this point, is remarkable indeed.
No journey has been more uncertain and more dramatic than that of the Duchess of Cornwall. And for many the image that resonates the most from this gathering of Charles’s clan is that of his wife with her arm around three-year-old Princess Charlotte while pointing at something off camera.
Doubtless there will be some who will be uneasy at the sight of the former Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles cradling Princess Diana’s granddaughter.
Yet the body language of the adults around her, particularly of the relaxed and informal William and harry, indicates not just warmth but acceptance. The message it conveys is that if they, Diana’s sons, think it is entirely natural for Camilla and her step-granddaughter to be knee to knee, then everyone else should, too.
Certainly it’s a picture that few would have thought possible a decade or so ago. Today it would seem churlish for anyone in royal circles to harbour resentment against a woman who is 71 and who has, quite obviously, settled comfortably into a public role that arrived late in life.
OF course the friends and admirers of the late Princess of Wales find the ease with which Camilla has been welcomed into royal life as Diana’s replacement hard to swallow. That she is central to Prince Charles’s life is without question. But the woman whom he famously said was ‘non-negotiable’ is now also at the heart of the Royal Family.
In the absence of Prince Philip for the Remembrance Day at the Cenotaph, it was Camilla who was at the Queen’s side and on hand to offer fortifying words during the ceremony. In fact, the Queen has come to depend on her.
She has been quietly impressed by the un-showy way Camilla has of going about her royal duties. Camilla doesn’t like grand appearances for their own sake and is not competitive with other family members — younger royals please take note. Friends say Camilla ‘couldn’t
be happier’ that the spotlight falls far more on Kate and Meghan than it does on her. But then even as a child, Camilla would avoid the limelight, happily letting it fall on her more outgoing younger sister Annabel.
The Queen thinks that for Charles to be a successful monarch, he needs someone to support him, as Prince Philip has done so brilliantly for her over the past seven decades.
After more than 13 years of marriage, Charles and Camilla have become an accomplished double act. Encouraged by the prince, her confidence on the public stage has grown. Last week’s appearance on the BBC documentary to mark the prince’s 70th birthday — from which she emerged with positive public feedback — revealed another facet as she fondly praised her husband.
And it can surely be no coincidence that all those doubts raised first by Diana about Charles’s suitability for the throne have largely subsided in the years since Camilla has been his wife.
Perhaps her greatest success has been her diplomatically hands-off approach to William and Harry. She avoided the pitfalls of the interfering stepmother and offered counsel only if it was sought.
‘Her political antennae are pretty sharp,’ says a close figure. ‘She knew that stepping into Diana’s shoes was one thing, but then to assume her role as mother to the boys would have been positively inflammatory.
‘She let them know she was there if they ever wanted advice, but never tried to impose it on them. There were probably times when Charles wished she had, but the relationship with the boys has come out that much stronger as a result of her not getting involved.’
Having raised two children herself — food writer Tom and Laura, who helps run a boutique in Berkshire — she would certainly have had some tips to impart.
Both are incredibly grounded and emerged remarkably unscathed from the break-up of her marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles and the fallout over her long affair with the Prince of Wales. Camilla adopted the same un-pushy strategy when it came to Charles’s grandchildren. And pointedly, during last week’s documentary she spoke of the prince’s involvement with her grandchildren — she has five.
SHE did help out with both Kate and Meghan as both women struggled to get to grips with the awesome reality of life as a royal princess. For Kate, who appreciated the advice, there was a very public lunch in a London restaurant. Meghan was invited to a more private tete-a-tete at Clarence House.
Timing, they say, is everything and Camilla’s role in her husband’s 70th birthday celebrations have been noted by her mother-in-law. It was Camilla, I understand, who organised the guest list and the placement for the dinner for 300 in the Palace ballroom.
In her highly moving and heartfelt tribute to her son at a Buckingham Palace party last night, where the Queen proposed the toast to the prince’s birthday, she singled out Camilla.
After cherishing Charles’s role as a champion of conservation, she acknowledged his role as a father before adding: ‘Most of all sustained by his wife Camilla, he is his own man, passionate and creative.’
Such maternal generosity surely signalled that the deep frost that descended on her relationship with her son — largely over the unravelling of his first marriage and later over his stubborn refusal to give up Camilla — has now vanished. And for that, much is due to Camilla herself. Ever since that 2005 wedding day when the Queen memorably welcomed the newlyweds, in racing parlance, ‘into the winners’ enclosure’, the duchess has worked tirelessly to win both public respect and that of the monarch.
In close to 14 years she has scarcely put a foot wrong — to the relief of the Queen.
So back to that picture and what it means. Happy families, certainly, and Camilla glowing with confidence.
But it also helped pave the way for Charles to be granted the authority he has long craved — the public endorsement from his mother that she delivered so eloquently last night.
Royal photographs seldom say very much, but once in a while one comes along that says everything.