Princess Diana and Prince Charles married in their spectacular royal wedding in 1981. However, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ infamously turbulent marriage went on to be rocked by scandal and infidelities. Royal biographer Penny Junor, in her 2017 book “The Duchess: The Untold Story” charts the downfall of the marriage of Charles and Diana, which unfolded in the media around the world. 

Diana’s claims were false

Penny Junor

Ms Junor writes: “In the midst of it all was a woman in her forties: Camilla Parker Bowles, the prince’s long-term mistress, the married woman whom Diana squarely blamed for the failure of her marriage to Charles and for fifteen years of unhappiness. 

“She claimed her husband had been obsessed by Camilla, that he had slept with her the night before their wedding, that they’d connived together to continue their affair behind her back.

“She called Camilla ’the enemy’ and ‘the Rottweiler’ and it was she to whom Diana referred when she famously said in a lengthy interview on British television, ‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.’

“Yet whatever she might have said – and believed – Diana’s claims were false.”

Ms Junor explains: “Camilla was not the sole reason the royal marriage fell apart, and she and Charles certainly did not sleep together the night before his wedding; there were many other factors that explain what went wrong.

“However, there is no denying that the prince did always love Camilla – in the way, perhaps, that we all harry a torch for our first love – and when the marriage had irretrievably broken down, he did turn to her for solace.

By this time Diana had lovers of her own, but she still obsessed over his reunion with Camilla.”

The Queen finally intervened in 1995, after Diana’s bombshell Panorama interview, and insisted that the Prince and Princess of Wales divorce.

They would finally end their four-year separation with a divorce in August 1996, just over a year before Diana’s untimely death in 1997.

In the difficult years following the death of Diana, Camilla was introduced slowly and carefully as Prince Charles’ new partner.

The now Duchess of Cornwall faced resistance from the public, and even from the Queen herself, with  Charles reportedly “infuriated” by his mother’s refusal to accept Camilla.

Charles and Camilla were finally able to marry in 2005.

However, Diana’s influence was still felt around the world, and her fans could still subject the Duchess of Cornwall to “rude and unpleasant” criticism.

Shortly after their wedding, Charles and Camilla went on their first royal tour together. 

Ms Junor writes: ”It was to America – Diana’s heartland.

“No one could have devised a more terrifying initiation.”

She continued: “[Camilla] knew the eyes of the world would be on her and that they would be making comparisons with the princess’ first trip with Charles in 1985.

“Diana had wowed the country.”

She continues: “A banner held up by a woman outside the United Nations summed it up: ‘Camilla you are not Diana.’

“When the royal pair met Donald and Melania Trump, among other famous guests, at the Museum of Modern Art, The New York Post ran the headline: “Queen Camilla is New York’s Frump Tower.” 

Last night, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall hosted the Animal Ball for the Elephant Family, the charity founded by Camilla’s late brother Mark Shand. 

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