Friday, 19 Apr 2024

Camilla was Queen’s ‘worst nightmare’ ‒ but ‘her best possible hope’ for Royal Family

Prince Charles and Camilla are the ‘big guns’ says Myers

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Camilla, 74, will attend the biennial Rifles Awards Dinner at the City of London Guildhall today. Prince Charles’ wife will be joined by Sophie, Countess of Wessex, the Duke of Kent, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra for the event. Camilla became the Rifles’ Colonel-in-Chief last year, taking over from Prince Philip, who died in April. Tonight, she is due to make a speech for the Rifles, which is one of the British Army’s largest infantry regiments.

The Duchess has been among the royals helping the Queen in recent weeks after a period of ill health for the monarch.

Her Majesty has pulled out of several engagements over the last few weeks after she was admitted to hospital for tests last month and advised to rest.

Camilla was among the senior royals at the Remembrance Sunday wreath-laying service in London this month, which the Queen said she would not attend after spraining her back.

Although the Duchess may be a reliable support for Her Majesty at present, she was once dubbed “the Queen’s worst nightmare”.

Royal historian David Starkey made the claim in an unearthed interview from a documentary, also claiming that Camilla was her “best hope”.

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The expert spoke for the film ‘Prince Edward & Sophie Rhys-Jones: The True Story’.

The documentary was released in 1999, a year in which Sophie and Edward got married, and in which Camilla and Charles were seen together in public for the first time since the death of his ex-wife Princess Diana two years earlier.

Mr Starkey said: “Camilla Parker Bowles, I think, must be both the Queen’s worst nightmare as a future Princess of Wales, and of course her best possible hope.

“If only Charles had got to her first. Camilla is the obvious Windsor wife.”

Charles wed Princess Diana back in 1981 at St Paul’s Cathedral, the fairy-tale ceremony broadcast across the world.

However, their marriage was soon in trouble and by 1986 Charles had started having an affair with Camilla, who was herself married to Andrew Parker Bowles at the time.

Details of the couple’s secret romance made their way into the press in a series of highly embarrassing stories for Buckingham Palace.

One such incident came as People magazine published the transcript of an explicit phone call between Charles and Camilla, which exposed their affair.

The scandal, which is sometimes known as ‘Camillagate’, came after the couple’s intimate pillow talk over the phone was intercepted with a scanning device and leaked to the press.

Charles and Diana separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996, while Camilla and her husband divorced in 1995.

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After Diana’s tragic death in a car crash in 1997, Charles started to see Camilla more openly.

Charles and Camilla eventually gained the Queen’s approval for their marriage and in 2005, tied the knot in a small ceremony.

Speaking for the documentary, Mr Starkey explained why in his opinion, Camilla was a good fit for the royal mould.

He said: “Windsor women on the whole are not clothes horses, they’re not beautiful.

“They are horsey, they are into headscarves and country pursuits.

“They have a certain good rough breeding about them. Camilla is the perfect Windsor wife.

“None of the nervousness or moodiness of Diana. But unfortunately, of course she’s second helpings and that’s the difficulty.”

‘Prince Edward & Sophie Rhys-Jones: The True Story’ is available to watch on YouTube.

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