The Daily Telegraph - Features
Is Andrew Parker Bowles the perfect ex-husband?
The Queen Consort and her former partner have kept up a steadfast friendship, says Eleanor Steafel
When Andrew Parker Bowles stood in for the Queen Consort at a funeral this week, it was the first time a queen has been represented in an official capacity by her ex-husband. Brigadier Parker Bowles was a relative of the deceased, John Bowes-Lyon – a cousin of the late Queen on her mother’s side – so he would probably have been at the funeral anyway. Even so, this was enough to earn him a spot in Wednesday’s Court Circular and a prominent pew at the London Oratory.
As one insider put it: “Funny to see the way these things now happen.” The royal rumour mill is hailing it a sign of things to come for the man who has suddenly found himself closer than ever to monarchy.
It must be an odd position to find yourself in – the former spouse of one of the most powerful women in the country some 27 years after your divorce – but Andrew Parker Bowles has always seemed the sort to get on with the job. Perhaps that’s one of the things he and his ex-wife share.
Both of them, insiders say, are naturally “amiable” and have always been “mature” about navigating what at times must have been an uncomfortably public relationship. The former couple are well known for having an upper-class, water-under-the-bridge sort of approach to things. They married in 1973 and divorced in 1995 (after a period of separation). Both remarried – Parker Bowles and his second wife, Rosemary, were guests at Charles and Camilla’s service of blessing in 2005. There is a deep fondness between them, despite infidelity on both sides, rooted in a relationship that spans six decades.
“That set are pretty robust,” says one insider, “the Gloucestershire hunting set – a sort of aristocratic arrogance perhaps? As to the relationship, they are mutual parents and grandparents. So they do get on with it.”
The Parker Bowleses seem a thoroughly modern family. They have two children – Laura Lopes, an art curator, and food writer Tom Parker Bowles – and five grandchildren, one of whom, Eliza, was a flower girl at the 2011 wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, who has known the Queen Consort since her school days, once said of Camilla: “Her family is key to her, especially her sister [Annabel], her former husband [Andrew Parker Bowles] and her children.”
Family must have been at the forefront of her mind when she and her husband separated, and when, shortly after, news broke of her resumed relationship with the then Prince Charles. Parker Bowles has “always been close to Camilla”, says Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine. “I think when she was having a really bad time when she was first with Prince Charles, when people were dreadful to her, she couldn’t even go out of her house, he was very supportive to her.”
Camilla and Andrew met in 1965. Camilla was 18 and Parker Bowles, 26, was a major in the Royal Horse Guards who played polo with Prince Charles. They were on and off, with Parker Bowles at one time dating Princess Anne. Around that time, Camilla was first introduced to the Prince.
Parker Bowles was “very handsome”, says Seward. “Attractive in a sort of louche way. Very charming.”
According to Jilly Cooper, Andrew was one of the men who inspired her beloved lothario, Rupert Campbell Black, the lovable cad from Riders. When she celebrated the re-release of the novel in 2016, Cooper invited Parker Bowles. Campbell-Black, you’ll recall, was supposedly the most handsome man in England who seduced his way through an extraordinary number of women.
Through all the “ins and outs” of their history, the ex-spouses seem to have maintained a friendly relationship. “I think from very early on they just found a sort of equilibrium together and it’s never gone,” says Seward.
Will this week’s appearance mean Parker Bowles is about to officially join the Firm? That may be a step too far. It was standard practice for the late Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to be represented by someone at an event, particularly at a funeral. Still, few divorced couples could get on with the job with the can-do ease of the Parker Bowleses.