Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

Before their marriage she had been his long-time partner. As the consort of the Prince of Wales she is legally HRH The Princess of Wales;^[2] although she is officially styled "Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall" ("Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Rothesay" in Scotland)^[3]. Although this is unconventional, it avoids a conflict with the princely title which is closely identified by the public with her husband's first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales.

Early life

Christened Camilla Rosemary Shand she spent her early youth as a commoner in the village of Plumpton, East Sussex, England, where the family home stood opposite the Plumpton Racecourse.

In her youth she worked for a year at the London decorators, Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler.

Before her wedding in 1973, Camilla had been one of many girlfriends of Prince Charles. However, she was seen by the Royal Family as an unsuitable bride, so they were not permitted to marry.^{citation needed}

Family history

Her great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was the last mistress of Edward VII (reigned 1901-1910). Mrs. Keppel's daughter, Sonia, was the Duchess' maternal grandmother.

Relationship with the Prince of Wales

The relationship between Camilla and the Prince of Wales began in 1970, after they met at a polo match before either of them were married.^[4] Camilla Shand was married in 1973 to Andrew Parker Bowles, an Army officer, friend of the Prince of Wales.

The friendship and illicit affair between the Prince of Wales and Parker Bowles carried on after the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Charles confirmed the illicit affair in a televised interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.^[5]. Camilla and her husband carried on illicit extramarital affairs during their marriage. It is said that Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles became lovers during this time, while her husband Andrew Parker Bowles took a long-term companion, Rosemary Pitman (née Dickinson), whom he later married. ]</ref>. Camilla is known to have visited her sister in America and Charles made annual weekend-long visits to the regiment in New York City during the 1970s, and it is said that it was during this period that he discreetly resumed his illicit relationship with Camilla.

Annabel Elliot relocated as an artist in the early 2000s, having been at one time the youngest antique dealers in New York City. It was Annabel Elliot's birthday party at the Ritz, Paris, during one of her husband's many London postings, which provided the first public occasion at which Charles and Camilla allowed themselves to be photographed — the success of the opportunity provided the template for many more.

The Prince's highly popular and charismatic first wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, publicly blamed the relationship between her husband and Camilla for the break-up of the Wales' marriage. She commented in the BBC programme Panorama, "Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." ^[6]; privately, the Princess referred to Camilla as "the Rottweiler".^{citation needed} Diana reported that Camilla had known before she did that the Prince of Wales was going to propose to her.^{citation needed} The Prince and Mrs Parker Bowles exchanged presents and used the pet nicknames of "Fred" and "Gladys" to one another. (These were based on their attachment to the British comedy group, the Goons.)

The affair became public knowledge upon the publication of Diana: Her True Story, followed by the Camillagate scandal (when a racy phone conversation between Camilla and Charles was secretly recorded and published wherein Charles stated he wished to be Camilla's tampon)^{citation needed} and Diana's television interview about her failing marriage. These revelations made Camilla highly unpopular. However, an assertion that Camilla was pelted with bread rolls in a supermarket by shoppers, though often repeated in the media,^[7] has been denied by her friends, who suggest that it was a tabloid media invention that has ended up becoming an urban myth.^[8]

It is often asserted that the couple's affair had been conducted throughout the Prince's engagement, and that they had been intimate on the night before Charles's marriage to Diana, charges that were unsubstantiated.^[9] Though the timing of these tangled relationships has been much discussed and dissected, reliable published reports indicate that they renewed their romantic relationship in the early 1980s. After the Prince of Wales's public admission, in a television interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, that he had committed adultery, the Parker Bowleses announced their own divorce in 1995. They had been living apart for some time, and Andrew Parker Bowles remarried a year later.

Though she maintains a residence in Wiltshire, the Duchess of Cornwall primarily lives at Highgrove House and at Clarence House, the former residence of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which is now the Prince of Wales's official London residence. He spent his early childhood in the house, which was the first residence of his newlywed parents, the present Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the Duke of Edinburgh. British newspapers reported in early 2005, in articles about the finances of the Prince of Wales, that, even though they were not married at the time, the prince paid for her jewels and designer wardrobe (among the designers are Giorgio Armani and Oscar de la Renta) and the decoration of her two-room Clarence House quarters by designer Robert Kime.

Since the civil marriage of Charles and Camilla, it has been revealed that they are ninth cousins once removed.^[10]

Marriage to the Prince of Wales

On 10 February 2005, it was announced that Camilla and the Prince of Wales would marry on 8 April 2005 at Windsor Castle with a civil service followed by a Church of England service.

On 4 April, it was announced that the civil wedding would be postponed 24 hours until 9 April, so that the Prince of Wales could attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II as the representative of the Queen.^[11]

The civil marriage ceremony took place at the Guildhall, Windsor, instead of the castle, as a wedding licence for Windsor Castle would have been required and a standard condition would be for it to accept public weddings for a minimum of three years. The service was attended by close members of the couple's family.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh did not attend the civil marriage ceremony. The Queen's reluctance to attend a civil marriage ceremony arose from her position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England.^[12] The Queen and Duke did attend the Church of England service of blessing at St George's Chapel following the civil ceremony (officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Revd Dr. Rowan Williams), and held a reception for the couple in Windsor Castle afterwards.^[13]

Following the wedding, the couple travelled to Birkhall, the Prince's country home in Scotland, near Balmoral Castle. The new couple carried out their first royal duties together during their honeymoon. To the surprise of her critics, Camilla's choice of clothes for her wedding day won widespread media praise, with the News of the World calling her outfits "sensational".^[14]

Since her marriage, Camilla has been known as HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, except in Scotland, where she is styled HRH The Duchess of Rothesay.

Royal duties

Following the royal wedding, the Duchess of Cornwall began to undertake a range of royal duties. Initially, these involved accompanying the Prince of Wales in his official obligations, however the Duchess also began to perform her own solo duties, first visiting a hospital in Southampton. She attended the Trooping the Colour ceremony in London for the first time in June, 2005, and made her first appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace afterwards. The following month Camilla accompanied her husband on a visit to St. Mary's Hospital in Paddington, to meet with victims of the July 7 bombings.

Camilla began to participate in overseas visits, starting with, along with Prince Charles, a royal tour of the United States in November 2005. In March the following year, the couple went on a royal tour through Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and India, throughout which Camilla won praises for her persistence and down-to-earth attitude. The Duchess has also visited Pakistan, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and Bahrain.

On 8 June 2007, the Duchess conducted the naming ceremony for HMS Astute, the first of a new class of attack submarine for the Royal Navy. Following this, it was announced in September that Camilla would name the new Cunard cruise ship, MS Queen Victoria,^[15]^[16] regarding which it was claimed that The Queen had expressed "surprise"^[17]. The Duchess conducted the ceremony at Southampton on 10 December 2007, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, where the traditional champagne bottle failed to break on impact – sometimes regarded as an ill-portent for the cruiser.^[18]^[19]

Personal life

In March 2007 she had a hysterectomy,^[20]. However, no details of the reasons for the procedure have been confirmed.

On Sunday 26 August 2007, in a statement released to the press, Camilla announced that she would not be attending Diana's Memorial Service on Friday 31st August, as she wished not to "divert attention from the purpose of the occasion which is to focus on the life and service of Diana". Camilla had already initially accepted the offer from her stepsons Princes William and Harry in December 2006, and after advice and discussions came to the conclusion that she would rather not attend, in order not to provoke any tension between the public and herself, due to continued public appreciation of Diana, Princess of Wales. [1]

Camilla became a grandmother on 9 October 2007, when her son Tom Parker Bowles and his wife Sara had a daughter named Lola. On the 17th January 2008, her second grandchild, Eliza, was born to her daughter Laura Lopes.

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

Camilla's full titles are Her Royal Highness The Princess Charles Philip Arthur George, Princess of Wales and Countess of Chester, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Carrick, Baroness of Renfrew, Lady of the Isles, Princess of Scotland^[21]

Duchess

As she is the consort and wife of the Prince of Wales, Camilla legally holds the title of Princess of Wales. Because this style is so strongly associated with Diana, Princess of Wales, by authority of the Queen, Camilla is styled with the feminine form of her husband's subsidiary title, Duke of Cornwall, rather than Princess of Wales.^[22] However, in Scotland both Charles and Camilla are formally styled as Duke and Duchess of Rothesay, a title historically associated with heirs to the Scottish throne.

As the Princess of Wales, the Duchess is the second highest-ranking female royal in the United Kingdom Order of Precedence (after The Queen), although it was revealed that the Royals' Order of Precedence for Private Occasions placed her fourth (after The Queen, The Princess Royal and Princess Alexandra). Her degree of acceptance within the Royal Family was shown in the decision to allow her to borrow and wear one of the tiaras of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.^[23] Her Royal Highness has also received the Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II, two years after her marriage. She first wore the honour in public during the 2007 Saudi state visit to Britain with the Honeycomb tiara which had belonged to the Queen Mother.

Royal consort

Clarence House has indicated that when Charles ascends the throne it is intended that she will use the title HRH The Princess Consort^[24]. Commentators have pointed out that unless a specific Act of Parliament is passed to the contrary, she will, as a King's wife, legally be Queen, regardless of whether she uses that title or not.^{citation needed}

The matter was discussed by historian Sir Roy Strong, who gave his personal opinion that Camilla will be crowned Queen.^[25]

Honours

Honorary military appointments

According to Michael Yon, Camilla sent a hand-written letter to every wounded soldier and to the family of every soldier that died when 4 Rifles was in Iraq. She also sent expensive scotch and invited families to her home.^[27]

Arms

On 17 July 2005, the Duchess's 58th birthday, Clarence House unveiled a coat of arms for Camilla's use. It impales her husband's main coat of arms to the dexter (viewer's left) with her father's to sinister (viewer's right), all surmounted by her husband's coronet as heir-apparent.

According to reports in the news media, the arms were authorized and granted by the Queen, who was said to have taken a "keen interest" in its development, along with Charles and Camilla; the arms itself were prepared by Peter Gwynn-Jones, Garter Principal King of Arms.^[28] However, aside from the invention of a boar supporter (reflecting her paternal arms) for the sinister side, the arms are entirely consistent with the historical heraldic arrangement for a married woman who is not herself a heraldic heiress.

Ancestry

References

^ As" a titled royal, Camilla holds no surname, but, when one is used, it is Mountbatten-Windsor
^ A spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs told the Sunday Times "[Camilla] automatically takes the title Princess of Wales and all the other titles that go with her marriage to the Prince of Wales." The Sunday Times. 03.04.2005.
^ " TRH The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall
^ BBC News "Profile: Camilla Parker Bowles"
^ Dimbelby, Jonathan, The Prince of Wales, A Biography, p.395
^ Bradford, Sarah, Diana(2006),p.294
^ See CNN story "Love spans more than 30 years" claims bread roll pelting.
^ The author Jilly Cooper, a close friend of Camilla, on RTÉ's The Late Late Show, 12 May 2006.
^ While Charles and Camilla were alone together for periods, it was in a room to which other guests and members of staff regularly walked in unannounced. No one reportedly witnessed any indications of sexual activity and the risks of engaging in such activity in a room where anyone could walk in at any time was highlighted as evidence that no such activity was likely to have happened, contrary to Diana's claims. The Sunday Times. 03.04.2005
^ Strange Relations: Prince Charles and Camilla are Ninth Cousins Once Removed
^ BBC News "Fans 'panic buy' 8 April mementos"
^ BBC News "Q&A: Queen's wedding decision"
^ CBS News "Charles and Camilla Finally Wed"
^ BBC News "Fashionistas praise Camilla style"
^ Cunard Line: Her Royal Highness The Duchess Of Cornwall To Name Cunard's New Queen Victoria; September 10, 2007
^ The Royalist – Camilla Prepares To Make Royal History
^ The Royalist – Queen Expresses "Surprise" Over Camilla Invite
^ BBC News – Camilla names new Cunard 'queen'
^ The Royalist – A Not-So Smashing Time For Camilla & Victoria
^ BBC News "Charles sees Camilla in hospital"
^ " Prince of Wales - Titles
^ name="trh"
^ "Duchess of Cornwall wears Queen Mother's Tiara"
^ Clarence House press release, 10 February 2005
^ The Royalist – Royal Friend Declares: Camilla WILL Be Queen
^ Honours of the Crown—The Monarchist League of Canada
^ Yon, Michael (2007-11-29). "Men of Valor: Part III". Retrieved on 2007-12-15.
^ BBC News "Camilla's coat of arms unveiled"

Contents