As such, King Charles III’s wife, Camilla, will be treading new and potentially sensitive ground as his queen consort, as she well knows. But social attitudes have changed sharply in the 25 years or so since he emerged from behind the shadow of Diana, Princess of Wales, as what the latter described as the third person in her marriage during her 1995 Panorama interview. If royal attitudes had evolved earlier 50 years ago, when Charles first courted her and accepted the possibility of the heir to the throne marrying a commoner rather than a princess or a member of the aristocracy – as the son was eventually able to do of William – then things might have been a lot less problematic for the royal family. Not that Camilla Rosemary Shand, as she was born, is particularly ordinary. Her mother, Rosalind, was the daughter of the 3rd Baron Ascombe and her father, Bruce, was an ex-major who had become a luxury wine merchant after leaving the army. One of her maternal great-grandparents was Alice Keppel, the mistress of Edward VII. Camilla and her younger brother and sister grew up in East Sussex and central London, the children of privilege and affluence. In the words of royal biographer Gyles Brandreth: “The Shands were undoubtedly of the upper class, they had status…they opened their garden for the local Conservative Party Union summer fete. Enough has been said.” He was privately educated – an O-level, no university – and went to a Swiss school finishing, completing a French course in Paris. She was fun and had fun. Fired from a job for turning up late after a party, she was working for the fashionable decor company Sibyl, Colefax and Fowler in Mayfair as a receptionist. Debuting in 1965, she became one of a group of affluent young women who moved in similar social circles to Charles, who was 18 months her junior. They had common interests and he had obviously hit it off. They had a secret relationship, occasionally caught by the press during secret tryouts at polo matches. But somehow Charles hesitated. He went into the naval service. Was she not regal enough? He wasn’t entirely sure? Was this all too public? “They were a perfect match, we know that now, but it wasn’t possible,” said Charles’ cousin Patricia Knatchbull. Camilla was certainly not on any list of eligible wives as Charles publicly searched for a bride and. Apparently tired of waiting, she went and married Andrew Parker-Bowles, an officer in the Blues and Royals Guards, in a society wedding in 1973. The marriage produced two children, Tom and Laura, but ended in divorce in 1994. Meanwhile, Charles’ supposedly fairytale marriage to Diana Spencer, a member of one of England’s oldest aristocratic families, was also falling into disrepair, first privately and then increasingly publicly. The couple shared few interests, Charles was 13 years older than his wife and the couple barely knew each other before their glamorous wedding. Charles was jealous of Diana’s popularity and found him aloof and irrelevant. He increasingly blamed Camilla for their growing estrangement and Charles admitted to adultery. Charles and Camilla had gotten back together as lovers in 1980, the year before his marriage to Diana resumed in the mid-1980s, and in 1992 their relationship became public with the release of the so-called Camillagate tapes, recorded secretly intimate conversations between those in which Charles famously wished he could be her tampon. The prince refused to end the relationship and in the mid-1990s both Diana and the Parker-Bowles divorced. After the Panorama interview and Diana’s death in an accident in Paris, Camilla was widely vilified as having been responsible for the break-up of the prince’s marriage and the princess’s death. What followed was a slow and coordinated PR exercise by Camilla and the prince, orchestrated by Charles’ advisers to make the relationship look appropriate and improve her public image. They were seen together, meeting at events and gradually Camilla began to accompany Charles. She was presented to the Queen in 2000 and appeared publicly in the monarch’s company during her golden jubilee celebrations in 2002. Camilla (third row, centre) attends a concert to celebrate the Queen’s golden jubilee in 2002. Photo: Stephen Hird/AP A careful assessment of public attitudes was commissioned. Would the public accept her after what had happened to Diana? Public attitudes were changing. Divorce and even adultery were no longer necessarily public taboos, and in 2005, when preparations were underway for the couple’s wedding, the only objections came from the conservative evangelical fringe. The Church of England wasn’t ready to marry the couple outright, but the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, agreed to give a blessing after a registry office wedding in Windsor. The marriage seems to have been crowned with success. It has made Charles noticeably less tense and grumpy and more smiling at public events, and Camilla has come to be seen as the good sort, friendly and approachable. Now at last it will be what Charles, his queen consort, always hoped and planned for.
