Camilla, Queen of the United Kingdom, has been a source of fascination since the then Camilla Parker Bowles’s long-term affair with King Charles III came to light. The love story of Charles and Camilla has captivated the world, but the woman at the center of the storm was for years a mystery. If you have ever wondered about Camilla and her fascinating rise from aristocratic country girl to queen, just know that there is more to the modest mom-of-two than meets the eye.
Born Camilla Rosemary Shand, Queen Camilla is remarkably down-to-earth, and her kind, open personality has surprised many who have met her over the years she’s been married to Charles III.
In 2004, author and playwright Kate Mosse was at a party for food writer Tom Parker Bowles. “I remember standing in the queue for the loo with an incredibly nice woman who had a rather deep and infectious laugh, and we had a bit of a chat. It was the women’s locker-room moment,” Mosse told Penny Junor, author of The Duchess: Camilla Parker Bowles and the Love Affair That Rocked the Crown. It was only later in the evening that she learned the mystery woman, who was a “complete hoot,” was none other than Tom’s mother, the notorious Camilla Parker Bowles.
Mosse’s reaction to Queen Camilla, then the Duchess of Cornwall, is typical of those who actually meet her. “She has a delightful personality. She’s very approachable, very easy to talk to, warm, friendly, funny,” Junor, a journalist who has written numerous books on the royals, including The Duchess, the definitive biography of Camilla, tells Vanity Fair. “She always has a twinkle in her eye and is a terrible giggler, often reducing Charles to fits of giggles too.”
Once reviled as the “most hated woman in Britain,” Queen Camilla has proved herself to be much more than the “third person” in the marriage of Charles and Princess Diana. Confident and breezy, she loves the competitive dance show Strictly Come Dancing; her rescue Jack Russell terriers, Bluebell and Beth; and King Charles III.
Camilla’s Early Life
Camilla Rosemary Shand was born on July 17, 1947, in London. Camilla has royal blood: Her illustrious forebearers include descendants of the royal Stuart bloodline, who ruled England from 1603 to 1714.
Unlike Charles and Diana, the thoroughly upper-class Camilla had an extraordinarily boisterous and joyful childhood. Raised primarily in the East Sussex countryside, she was extremely close to her siblings and parents, Bruce and Rosalind Shand, who (atypical for the time) were hands-on parents. “As a little girl she marched happily into school without looking back,” Junor writes in The Duchess. “She galloped her pony and flew over jumps without an anxious thought. She charged into the sea and laughed at the waves.”
An indifferent student, Camilla was fun-loving, athletic, and unambitious. After school she worked as a secretary for a time, and then as a receptionist for decorators Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler (who fired her after she came in late after a night on the town).
“She couldn’t have been less interested in the idea of a career. She wasn’t itching to travel...and had no desire to go to university,” Junor writes in The Duchess. “She wanted no more from life than to be happily married to an upper-class man and live a sociable life in the country with horses, dogs, children, and someone to look after them all and do the hard graft.”
Camilla Meets Prince Charles
Camilla Rosemary Shand met Prince Charles, considered the most eligible bachelor in the world, in the summer of 1970. Camilla was 16 months older than Charles. The attraction between the pair was instant, especially on the part of the awkward Prince of Wales. “Charles loved that Camilla smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth, and laughed at the same silly things he did,” Junor writes.
The two started dating, and Charles later described the relationship as “blissful, peaceful, and mutually happy.” Outside forces, however, were pulling them apart. According to Junor, Charles’s great-uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten, disapproved of the relationship and prevented Charles from marrying Camilla, since she was not a virgin, nor aristocratic enough. There was also the fact that Camilla was head over heels in love with the dashing, sophisticated Army Calvary officer Andrew Parker Bowles, who had a reputation as a womanizer and reportedly dated Princess Anne for a time.
Camilla’s First Marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles
A determined Camilla Rosemary Shand finally snagged Andrew Parker Bowles, and they married on July 4, 1973, despite Charles’s pleas to cancel the wedding. They had two children, Tom and Laura, and Camilla settled into the role she had always wanted, that of a country wife and mother.
Camilla’s warmhearted nature, however, was supremely tested by Andrew’s dismissive attitude and constant philandering. According to Junor, Andrew’s infidelity was so well known that one friend once teased him: “I’m really hurt, Andrew. I’m the only one of Camilla’s friends you haven’t made a pass at. What’s wrong with me?”
Charles and Camilla’s Affair
Charles and Camilla continued to be best friends after her marriage, and by the late 1970s, they were having an affair. The lonely prince was often a guest at the Parker Bowles’s home, where Camilla hosted warm, wine-filled parties. “She treated him like a normal person, as she had when they were together, and if ever he behaved badly, or was selfish or thoughtless, she wasn’t afraid to tell him so,” Junor writes in The Duchess. “She was a proper friend.”
This gift for friendship seems to have been what reignited her affair with the Prince of Wales in the mid-1980s. “He was in the depth of depression when his marriage was failing, and she pulled him out of that and made him laugh again,” Junor says.
Scandal Rocks Charles and Camilla
With the publication of Andrew Morton’s Diana, Her True Story in 1992, Camilla’s private world was upended. She was stalked by the press, taunted with hate mail, and dismissed as ugly when compared with the beautiful Princess Diana. Then there was the embarrassing mess of tampongate in 1993, when intimate calls between Charles and Camilla were released by the press.
So why did she stick around with Charles? The answer may be simple: Charles worshipped her and needed her. As Camilla once told a friend, per Junor, “It’s wonderful to be loved.”
After both were divorced, the palace went to work to slowly introduce Camilla to the public. “Before she married Charles, no one really knew Camilla. They only knew that Diana had called her a rottweiler,” Junor says.
Charles and Camilla’s Royal Wedding
Charles and Camilla married at Windsor Guildhall on April 9, 2005, eight years after Princess Diana died. According to Prince Harry, he and his brother Prince William begged their father not to marry Camilla. Though the brothers did go to the ceremony, Queen Elizabeth II did not attend Charles and Camilla’s wedding because, as head of the Church of England, she felt it was inappropriate since both Charles and Camilla had been divorced.
After their marriage, the newly styled Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, began a life in public service.
“Camilla had been public enemy number one for much of the 1990s after Diana named her the third person in the marriage,” Junor says. “But by the time she and Charles married, I think some people’s attitudes were beginning to soften, and the reception they had from the crowds in Windsor on the day of the wedding was almost entirely positive.”
Revealing her strength and smarts, Camilla, as Duchess of Cornwall, seemed to have made a conscious effort to woo the very press that made her life hell for over a decade. “As soon as she was married, she was seen out and about with Charles, and when people met her, they were surprised by how warm and friendly and funny she was,” Junor says. “They liked her. And because she was friendly to the press and helpful to photographers, they wrote friendly things about her and published good photographs, and gradually the public’s view of her changed.”
The easy, loving relationship between Camilla and Charles was also evident during their public appearances, a far cry from Charles and Diana’s strained final outings. After a trip to Papua New Guinea in 2012, Charles’s pride was evident when he spoke of her in an interview for the documentary Our Queen. “She loved it, and I hope they found out just how special she is. And I think they very much responded to her just being jolly good and down to earth.”
Queen Camilla’s Important Role
According to palace staff, Camilla plays an important role in palace life. She also makes working for Charles, whose petulance and tantrums are legendary, easier. “She would be sitting at the table listening to him behave badly and all she would have to do is look at him and the whole atmosphere would change,” one staffer told Junor in The Duchess.
“I think Camilla has transformed Charles,” Junor says. “He is happier with her than he has ever been. She gives him confidence and the support he has so desperately needed throughout his life and never truly found elsewhere.”
Camilla has also proved herself to be a very hard worker and a secret weapon for a monarchy low on top-tier royals available for public service. She is now the patron of more than 90 charities and has a camaraderie with the public few other royals can claim. “She is very chatty with the public and makes them feel instantly at ease, often making a joke or telling them, for example, that her feet are killing her—the normal sort of exchanges that normal people have, that I think most people find endearing,” Junor says.
Camilla’s Common Touch
Camilla has endeared herself to the public by being willing to get her hands dirty. In November 2021, Catherine Johnstone, Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Chief Executive of Royal Voluntary Services (of which Queen Camilla is president), told Hello! about a time Camilla was serving meals at one of its lunch clubs. “One of the older diners with sight issues asked whether the Duchess would cut up her food,” Johnstone said. “Her Royal Highness immediately started cutting up her meal without hesitation.”
Camilla’s choice of patronages has also shown her not to be the blithe country gal she often seemed to be. She has highlighted the often-taboo subjects of domestic violence, sexual assault, and rape. In October 2021, she gave a remarkably pointed speech on sexual violence at the WOW Foundation’s Shameless! Festival in London, where her words were blunt, progressive and moving.
Of course, the queen is not without faults; she is said to be very stubborn, and tough on people she doesn’t like. Sometimes Camilla’s irreverent humor can also get her into trouble. In 2017, she and Charles were panned as culturally insensitive after they couldn’t stop giggling during a performance of Inuit throat singers in Canada. She is a terrible gossip, notes Junor in her book, making the rumor that she told anyone who would listen that President Joe Biden had passed gas during a reception at the 2021 climate change summit entirely believable.
Camilla’s Relationship With the Royal Family
Perhaps the hardest people for Camilla to win over have been members of the royal family, who may not have accepted her initially. “The queen didn’t want Camilla around in the early days because their relationship was so damaging to the monarchy, but on a personal level, she has always liked Camilla,” Junor says. “They have a lot in common, particularly their love of dogs and horses. And I think she is friendly enough with other members of the family and gets on well with William and Kate. It was initially difficult for both William and Harry, but Camilla let them take their time.”
But no matter what his family thinks, Charles’s love for Camilla is evident in their 2021 Christmas card, which shows the Prince of Wales tenderly helping his wife put on her mask at Ascot. While it seems some royal family members, including Prince William and his wife Kate, eventually accepted Camilla, others appear to have more complicated feelings. In his controversial 2023 memoir Spare and subsequent press interviews, Prince Harry characterized his stepmother as a “dangerous” figure who sacrificed him and his wife Meghan Markle on the altar of public opinion.
“She’s my stepmother,” Prince Harry told Good Morning America in 2023. “I don’t look at her as an evil stepmother. I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image, for her own sake.”
The relationship between Prince Harry and Charles further deteriorated after Prince Harry’s pointed comments about Camilla. “I think people have to realize that the one thing that Charles finds unforgivable is criticism of Camilla,” royal biographer Christopher Andersen told Fox News Digital. “Harry said some pretty devastating things about her…I don’t think they’ll ever forgive Harry for that.”
From Duchess of Cornwall to Queen
On September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died after a 70-year reign. After decades in waiting, King Charles III was finally a monarch, and his beloved was now Camilla, Queen Consort.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s coronation was held in Westminster Abbey on May 6, 2023, in a ceremony watched by 20 million viewers in the United Kingdom. After King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer in early 2024 (followed by the shock cancer revelation of Catherine, Princess of Wales in March), Queen Camilla valiantly stepped up her duties, bravely becoming the face of the monarchy during a difficult time.
But it is private life at their London residence of Clarence House and various other royal dwellings, where they are surrounded by their 10 grandchildren, which seems to fulfill Queen Camilla the most. For, although she is now Queen of the United Kingdom, she is still a fun-loving, family-focused mom at heart. And no matter what the future holds, the love between Charles and Camilla endures, as they face the challenges of ruling and aging. “[King Charles III] is immensely proud of her,” Junor says. “And he is grateful to her for everything she has sacrificed for him.”
