In 2006 in London, The Sunday Times dropped a bombshell on its front page: Camilla Parker Bowles, who the previous year had finally married her very long-term boyfriend Prince Charles, subject to the proviso that she would never be queen, was going to be queen after all.
Such was the extent of the palace’s fury and wish to suppress the story that Charles’ then press secretary, Paddy Harverson, took the almost unprecedented step of ringing round all the Fleet Street royal correspondents assuring them the story was utter nonsense, and urging them not to follow it up in their Monday editions.
Duncan Larcombe, a former royal correspondent at the Sun, told The Daily Beast that he remembers the incident well, and indeed the story has become something of a Fleet Street classic.
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Over the years, the stout denial of what it now turns out was true all along has been repeated several times; indeed, when The Daily Beast reported in 2017 that Charles intended unilaterally to declare Camilla queen when he ascended to the throne, the palace said our story was “without foundation.”
That all changed Saturday night, when the queen—the only person with the power to change royal titles—released a message timed to mark the 70th anniversary of her accession to the throne. “It is my sincere wish,” the monarch stated, “that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”
We now know that plans for Camilla to be queen were officially signed off by the queen years ago. The Daily Mail has reported that the coronation service itself was formally edited to include the crowning of Queen Camilla several years ago, and that Charles “came close” to announcing that Camilla would be queen in 2019, on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
The Mail quoted a source as saying: “This is something that has been on the Prince of Wales’ mind for some time, but the timing had to be right. There was a nervousness, they wanted to get it right. It’s been a done deal for some time, but the question has been how best to execute it.”
The fact that she used her platinum jubilee to gift Charles Camilla’s legitimacy as queen shows Her Majesty has an astute instinct for PR. A clear sign of the queen’s changed view of Camilla is that she is reportedly to be given the late Queen Mother’s crown, which contains one of the world’s largest cut diamonds, the 105.6-carat Koh-i-Noor.
To be fair to Harverson, in 2006 the queen probably was still opposed to the concept of Queen Camilla.
The journalist Tom Bower has previously claimed that in 1998, when Charles begged her to accept Camilla she called her, “that wicked woman,” adding: “I want nothing to do with her.”
The queen had set her face against Camilla after the shocking revelations made by Princess Diana in her Panorama interview that Charles and Camilla had effectively conducted an affair before, during and after their marriage.
The queen was as good as her word and refused for many years to be in the same room as Camilla—although she pointedly invited her ex-husband, Andrew (a page boy at Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953) to race meetings and shooting parties.
In 2002, the first sign of a softening came when Camilla was allowed to attend the Queen Mother’s funeral, but it was made clear that she was attending in her capacity as a friend of the Queen Mum’s (although she had also turned against Camilla at the end of her life, and, like her daughter, refused to be in the same room as her.)
But the reality is that 2005, when the queen allowed Charles and Camilla to marry she must have known, despite the public utterances that Camilla would be known as “Princess Consort” their marriage was setting in train a series of events that would probably result in Queen Camilla sitting upon the throne. (The queen attended the reception but not the marriage itself, and, although she didn’t speak to Camilla she made a warm speech welcoming Charles and Camilla to “the winners’ enclosure.”)
It is interesting to note that the statute books were never changed to allow for the wife of a male monarch not to be called queen, which one might have expected if the “Princess Consort” claim was anything other than a national softening up exercise.
Indeed, naming Camilla “Princess Consort” would have required the invention of a new category of nobility. Traditionally, the husbands of ruling queens are called “Prince Consorts” (this was Prince Albert’s title) although Philip actually declined that title. He was made Duke of Edinburgh by his father in law, and the queen subsequently made him a free standing Prince. Wives of kings were always called Queen Consorts (Queen for short). The non-king status of queen’s husbands appears to have been a tactic to try and keep them in their place.
Larcombe, who covered the wedding for the Sun, recalls: “The marriage was when the eggs were going to be hurled. The police presence that day was insane, they were genuinely expecting things be thrown and placards and demonstrations, but, on the day, all that happened was they were greeted with smiles and cheers.
“If it didn’t happen then it won’t happen now. My feeling is that the public have moved on from this. People just don’t care. The public mood is not that this is an insult to the memory of Diana.”
Camilla has certainly worked hard at rehabilitating herself in the years since then, completing a remarkable transformation in the eyes of the queen—and much of the nation— from home wrecker to Charles’s loyal companion and source of strength.
Journalists and editors like her, not least because she looks at the camera and smiles for photos, as opposed to some of the other royals who seem to take a childish delight in vexing them, and she has also been assiduous in courting the media.
There will be no Sussex-esque threats of legal action from Queen Camilla, whatever they may write, of that one can be be sure.
Camilla has also been diligent about her public duties, quietly working away for dozens of unfashionable causes including, most notably, domestic violence.
Her most prominent military role is as Royal Colonel of the 4th Battalion, The Rifles. She is said to have sent handwritten letters to every wounded soldier and wrote personal letters to the relatives of the 66 members of The Rifles killed in Afghanistan.
Camilla is still not among the most popular royals —she lingers at 11th place in the current YouGov rankings, sandwiched between Prince Edward and the York girls—but other than the Diana-fanatics, people no longer hate the idea of her. The news of her status upgrade has been greeted with enthusiasm from her fans and a national shrug of the shoulders from those who would once have been her critics in the U.K.
One can imagine Prince William (who has dutifully tweeted birthday wishes to Camilla in recent years) making peace with the notion of his stepmother being queen—like his father and grandmother, the stability of the institution matters more to him than his personal feelings.
Indeed, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday that while William was not consulted about the decision to elevate Camilla to queen-in-waiting, he was “supportive,” of the move, despite a sometimes tempestuous history with Camilla. The paper quoted a source as saying: “There were huge family rows in the early stages of Charles and Camilla’s marriage as everyone found their feet. William didn’t have the best relationship with his father back then. But he sees that Camilla had made his father happy and it is something he has come to terms with.
“His relationship with the Prince of Wales is better than it ever has been. He is not particularly close to his stepmother but they get on perfectly well and are quite the blended family now. He also respects his grandmother and her judgment more than anything in the world. If it is right for her, then it will be right for him.”
The more open question is how the news of Camilla’s elevation will be received by his brother Harry.
While the Sun reported that William was “fine with it” and Harper’s Bazaar said he was “happy,” there has been no indication of how Harry reacted.
Penny Junor, who has written biographies of Camilla, Charles and Harry, told The Daily Beast, “I would like to think Harry was a big boy and said, ‘Fantastic, dad.’ But that is not to say that he hasn’t had an understandably difficult relationship with Camilla over the years. As a child, it was very difficult for him to accept her because of all the things he had read and heard his mother say about her.
“But I think he came to weigh that against the effect Camilla had on his father. I think he is very aware that she has made his father a much more relaxed, happy and lighter father, which has only been good for both boys.”
Asked if she thought Harry’s forthcoming memoir would contain “truth bombs” that could be damaging for Camilla, Junor said: “I would think almost certainly it will. The publisher has paid a fortune for that book so it has got to have some bombs in there, and the only thing that could feasibly be worth that kind of money is the inside account of what it was like to be a member of that family as that marriage was disintegrating. It could be devastating, but I don’t think the timing of this announcement had anything to do with Harry’s book.”
Junor added, “The eyes of the world were on the queen this weekend, and it was the perfect moment to make the announcement. She restated her intention to continue to serve, but offered reassurance that there will be a future for the monarchy after she is gone, and that Charles is the future and Camilla will be the woman at his side.”
Ultimately the fact is that the queen has been persuaded that Camilla, whom she once despised, is an almighty asset to the royal family and should be recognized as such. Now the public just need to be convinced of the same.
