Prince Charles married Princess Diana in a fairy-tale wedding. But in Diana’s own words, there were three of us in this marriage. The other woman was Camilla Parker Bowles, who always said she was holding out for a king. Camilla and Charles’ affair destroyed his marriage.
When he became King in 2002, Camilla fulfilled her lifelong ambition to become Queen. However, there were several major twists along the way…
Camilla’s Early Life
Camilla Rosemary Shand (pictured, right) was born in London on July 17th, 1947. She was born into high society through both her aristocratic parents. Her father, Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand, Vice Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, was a former British Army officer-turned-wine merchant.
Her mother, The Honourable Rosalind Maud Cubitt, was the daughter of the 3rd Baron Ashcombe and a charity worker. Camilla has a younger sister, Annabel Elliot — and she also had a younger brother, Mark, until he sadly passed away when he fell and hit his head in New York in 2014.
Home and Education
The Shand family divided their time between their three-story house in South Kensington and their $2 million, 18th-century country estate, The Laines, in East Sussex. When she was 10, Camilla (pictured, left) went to London’s exclusive Queen’s Gate School. She was an avid reader, horse rider, and tomboy.
Classmates described “Milla” as a girl of “inner strength,” exuding “magnetism and confidence,” and “bright and lively.” Despite these glowing references, 16-year-old Camilla left Queen’s Gate School with one O-level in 1964. For reference, most average students gained 8-10 O-Levels.
Swiss Finishing School
Instead of continuing her education by taking A-levels, Camilla Shand attended Mon Fertile Finishing School in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, where she developed a “confidence over men.” Next, she studied French and French literature at the University of London Institute in Paris for six months.
Most students need three A-levels to get into university. Camilla had one O-level and no A-levels, but money goes a long way. In 1965, Camilla became a debutante in London. A debutante is a young aristocratic woman who’s presented to high society at a formal debut.
Party Girl
During the height of London’s Swinging Sixties, Camilla moved into an apartment in trendy Kensington with her friend Jane Wyndham. She worked as a secretary for several West End companies and as a receptionist for a painter and decorator in Mayfair. However, she was soon fired after “she came in late, having been to a dance.”
Camilla, you see, was a party girl. She loved living it up and often stayed out all night schmoozing with her posh pals. But eventually, her girlfriends started marrying off.
Holding Out for a King
While Camilla was happy living the high life, all her friends became engaged to various Princes, Barons, Counts, and Dukes. Her roommate Virginia Carrington moved out to marry Camilla’s uncle, real estate tycoon Henry Cubitt.
According to her classmate, the renowned British actress Lynn Redgrave, Camilla not only wanted to stay out partying, but she also made it abundantly clear she intended to marry for status. In fact, Camilla always insisted that she was “holding out for a king.” Pictured here is Camilla’s future brother-in-law, Richard Eustace Parker Bowles, and the other on their wedding day.
Andrew Parker Bowles
Young Camilla continued her passion for horse riding and frequently attended equestrian events events like polo games. She loved painting and even took private lessons with an artist, although she admits most of her work “ended up in the bin.” The outdoorsy tomboy also loved fishing and gardening.
In the mid-1960s, Simon Parker Bowles — who worked for her father’s Mayfair wine company — introduced Camilla to his elder brother. Andrew Parker Bowles was a Guards Officer; a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals Cavalry Regiment of the British Army.
Royal Pick Up Line
Camilla Shand saw Andrew Parker Bowles on and off since she was 18. But the pair were always splitting up and getting back together. Andrew started dating the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne, and Camilla started dating Prince Charles. It’s long been rumored Camilla and Charles first met at a Windsor Great Park polo match.
Never one for being backward at being forwards, legend says that the outrageously blunt Camilla Parker Bowles’ first words to Prince Charles were — “My great-grandmother and your great-great-grandfather were lovers. So how about it?”
Alice Keppel
Now would probably be a good time to mention that the Shand family is no stranger to having affairs with British kings. Camilla’s maternal great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was the long-time mistress of King Edward VII, King Charles III’s great-great-grandfather.
When Alice Keppel was 23, she married the Honourable Lieutenant Colonel George Keppel, son of the 7th Earl of Albemarle. But in 1898, Alice met Queen Victoria’s eldest son, Edward, Prince of Wales. Despite the 27-year age gap, they embarked on a long and torrid affair.
A Long Wait
Camilla’s great-grandmother. Alice, was 29 years old when the salacious affair started, while the Prince of Wales was in his mid-50s. Edward was besotted with Alice, and — while it was never publicly acknowledged — their affair was an open secret in aristocratic circles. Prince Edward became King after his mother, Queen Victoria, passed away in 1901.
However, because his mother reigned for 63 years, Edward VII had to wait until he was 59 to inherit the throne. He lived another nine years, passing away in 1910 aged 68 and ending the Edwardian era.
I’m a Royal Too, Don’t You Know?
Throughout her life, Camilla Parker Bowles had often declared to friends she was a member of the royal family through association. Narrator’s voice; she wasn’t. Whether she used the above pick-up line on the young prince is up for dispute.
Royal biographer Gyles Brandreth revealed they didn’t meet at that Windsor Great Park polo event. Beloved British raconteur Brandreth says the couple first met when Charles’ ex-lover, Lucía Santa Cruz, introduced them at a glitzy 1970 house party when Charles was 22 and Camilla was 24.
The Goon Show
Charles and Camilla bonded over their shared sense of humor, particularly a mutual love of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan’s 1950s brilliant, surreal comedy radio show, The Goon Show (they could perform all the voices!). Royal expert Marlene Koening says they were instantly attracted to each other, and the young prince chased Camilla right from the get-go.
He was putty in Camilla’s hands, often going gooey with puppy-love excitement. He wrote her “elaborately worded love notes,” and they talked on the telephone into the early hours of the morning.
Country Life
After becoming close friends, they eventually fell in love. Charles was delighted Camilla liked all the things he did (red flag!). She enjoyed country life and adored horses, hunting, and horticulture just as much as he did. Later, people laughed at Charles for talking to his house plants, but he’s right — it works!
The pair were often seen out and about in town and at Windsor polo matches, where Charles frequently played. They became part of Annabel’s Berkeley Square set and even met each other’s families… but it wasn’t meant to be. Not yet.
The Virgin Queen
Camilla wasn’t viewed as a good match for Charles for many reasons. For starters, royal historian Thomas Mace-Archer-Mills explains, “There was no chance a senior royal, much less the future king, could marry a woman who wasn’t a virgin.”
Mace-Archer-Mills continues, “The number one rule, before the looks or the breeding of a potential royal spouse, was that she be a virgin first and foremost. This rule has always been strictly observed for women marrying senior royals — it was a condition of marriage.”
Scuppered Plans
In early 1973, Charles was posted overseas with The Royal Navy and left Camilla behind for seven months. Now, because this is the Royal Family, there are many conspiracy theories. First, The Queen was not amused that Camilla had a reputation for being a party girl and had been with so many boyfriends.
Another theory suggests The Queen Mother wanted Charles to marry one of the Spencer family’s granddaughters, one of whom was a beautiful, shy young girl named… Lady Diana Spencer.
Monty’s Advice
Charles’ favorite uncle, Monty, even wrote to the prince — “In a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife, he should choose a suitable, attractive, and sweet-charactered girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for… It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage.”
Another theory is that Lord Mountbatten, the Admiral of the Fleet, sent his nephew overseas to get rid of Camilla to make way for his granddaughter Amanda Knatchbull.
Camilla’s Betrayal
Charles and Camilla spent one last weekend together in December 1972. Charles wrote to his Uncle Dicky (Mountbatten) that it would be “the last time I shall see her for eight months.” However, after just two months overseas, he was shocked to hear Camilla and Andrew Parker-Bowles had become engaged.
Charles was devastated that such a “blissful, peaceful, and mutually happy relationship” had ended so suddenly. According to reports, the “broken-hearted Prince of Wales locked himself in his cabin for two days and nights and refused to emerge for meals.”
Pride and Prejudice
With both sets of parents desperate for Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles to tie the knot, Camillas’ father had grown impertinently impatient. And then he did something crazy. Something less befitting of a stiff-upper-lipped ex-British Army Major and more like a hysterical character in a Jane Austen novel…
Channeling Pride and Prejudice’s Mrs. Bennett, in 1973, Major Bruce Shand placed an engagement announcement for his daughter in The Times newspaper. This forced Andrew to propose to Camilla because his future father-in-law gave him no choice!
The Society Wedding of the Year
On July 4th, 1973, 25-year-old Camilla Shand and 33-year-old Andrew Parker Bowles were married in a Roman Catholic ceremony at Wellington Barracks Guards’ Chapel, in London. Eight hundred guests attended the “society wedding of the year,” — including Queen Elizabeth II’s daughter, Anne; the Queen’s sister, Margaret; and The Queen Mother.
The newlyweds settled down in England’s gorgeous West Country, moving into Bolehyde Manor in Allington and then Middlewick House in Corsham. They had two children, Tom and Laura, in 1974 and 1978. Prince Charles became Tom’s godfather.
