Queen Elizabeth and (Then) Prince Charles’ Relationship Suffered Because of His Relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, Andrew Morton Says

It may be hard to believe now—she is, after all, Queen, standing right alongside her husband, King Charles, and widely accepted by the British people—but there was once a time when Camilla Parker-Bowles was one of the most vilified women not just in the U.K., but globally. Though she and Charles fell in love long before Charles and Diana Spencer were married in 1981, the then Camilla Shand was considered an unsuitable bride for the then Prince Charles; she married Andrew Parker-Bowles in 1973. Charles is said to have been devastated, but they remained close friends, and Camilla was even present at Charles and Diana’s wedding eight years after her own. At some point (it’s a fool’s errand to speculate when), Charles and Camilla’s romantic relationship resumed, and Camilla was “the other woman”—the third party—in Charles and Diana’s fractured marriage. Both Charles and Camilla were divorced from their respective spouses by 1996 (both Charles and Camilla having two children each), and, finally, after over 30 years of being in love, the two married in 2005. From there, rehabilitating her image was a priority, and today Camilla enjoys a reputation as a hard-working senior royal who truly loves her husband.

But there were difficult years, where not only the public was reticent to accept her, but Charles’ own family as well. OK reports that the late Queen Elizabeth had a years long rift with Charles over his affair with Camilla, according to royal expert and royal author Andrew Morton, and, though at the end of her life she and Charles had become quite close, the pair’s relationship was “fractured for a bit due to Charles’ scandalous love triangle with Princess Diana and Queen Camilla,” the outlet reports. (Just imagine, in, say, 1989, having the intel that Camilla would one day be Queen. Most wouldn’t believe it.)

The affair didn’t sit well with Her late Majesty. “The Queen and her advisers, her courtiers, her private secretary—they all believed that Prince Charles should give up Camilla,” Morton said. “He could love her, but he needed to leave her. And that’s because they felt she was damaging to the monarchy, which she was. There’s no question about that.”

Look—no matter how you feel about Charles and Camilla, no one can deny that their relationship is a love story. It has been reported that having Camilla in his life was a non-negotiable for Charles, and that he even told his mother so. “The presence of Camilla in Charles’ life did cause a rift between the Queen and her eldest son, one which took several years to patch up,” Morton said. “And what’s the Queen’s job? It is to preserve the monarchy. She sees this woman who is damaging the monarchy remaining in place. So it took a long time for that to be resolved.”

The late Queen and her son did end up mending fences, but it took some outside help to do so, Morton said. “It wasn’t until the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, intervened and said, ‘Look, I’ve spoken to Camilla on numerous occasions. She’s dedicated and loving. And her feelings for Charles are not going away,’” Morton said.

Upon their 2005 marriage, it was understood at the time that Camilla would only ever be called Princess Consort when Charles ascended to the throne. In February 2022, on her own Accession Day, Queen Elizabeth released a statement that read “When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me; and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”

After Queen Elizabeth’s death in September 2022, Camilla was initially referred to as Queen Consort, because “it made sense to refer to Her Majesty [Camilla] as the Queen Consort in the early months of His Majesty’s reign, to distinguish from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” a source explained to CNN at the time. “The Coronation is an appropriate time to start using ‘Queen Camilla’ in an official capacity. All former Queen Consorts have been known as ‘Queen’ plus their first name.”

As the Coronation invitations were released, they said “Queen Camilla” on them, signaling in no uncertain terms the protocol as to what Camilla would henceforth be known as—a far cry from yesteryear, further proving that, yes, anything is really possible.