Camilla attends the ‘Poetry Together’ recital and tea party

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Camilla visited the Poppy Factory’s new facilities in Richmond-upon-Thames earlier this week, to add the finishing touches to a wreath her husband, Prince Charles, will lay at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. She also completed a custom-made Remembrance cross which she will personally place at Westminster Abbey’s Field of Remembrance today to mark Armistice Day. The Royal Family usually has an exceptionally busy calendar of engagements in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. Opening the Field of Remembrance is one that they never miss.

Camilla will attend for the second consecutive year, in a role that had previously been carried out by Prince Harry.

Charles and Camilla will both attend the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph this week, alongside the Queen and a host of other senior royals.

The late royal expert Judy Wade explained the effect Camilla has on her husband in the 2007 documentary ‘Prince Charles and Prince William: Royal Rivals?’.

She said Camilla acts like a “crutch” for Charles.

She added: “She boosts his ego and tells him he’s wonderful every day.

“That’s not the sort of job that sons like to take on.

“She’s the sort of person that’s a buffer between them and their father.

“Especially, I think, if they’ve done something that their father doesn’t quite approve of.

“Camilla’s got a son herself and she understands that boys will be awful boys sometimes.”

Camilla has two children from her marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles — Tom and Laura, born in 1974 and 1978 respectively.

After Princess Diana’s death, Camilla found herself in a difficult position, according to the Daily Mail’s editor at large Richard Kay.

He told the documentary: “She entered the relationship and the marriage knowing full well that she could not take on the role as the stepmother to William and Harry because she would be perceived as the wicked stepmother.”

Charles’ relationship with Camilla is an extremely happy one, relationship expert James Preece told Express.co.uk.

Citing a series of photographs of the royal couple, he said: “She’s very happy and very proud of him, that’s a genuine smile.”

He added: “They always seem to mirror each other, which is good, but it’s always her one step behind.

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“You’ll see this in other pictures of them as well. She knows her place.

“She knows he’s the future king of England and she’s never quite going to be on the same level as him.”

Camilla’s contribution to the Royal Family was echoed by royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams.

He told Express.co.uk that Camilla is “very valuable” and makes a “very valuable contribution” to the Firm.

He added: “But also of course as an ideal partnership with the Prince.”

The Queen did not always approve of Camilla, however.

Investigative author Tom Bower claimed in the Daily Mail in 2018 that Her Majesty had, for a long while, refused to have any interaction with Camilla.

He wrote: “Not only did they not want her present at any royal function, either formal or informal; they actively disapproved of her, and of Charles’ relationship with her.”

Charles allegedly confronted his mother about her attitude towards Camilla at Balmoral in 1998.

Mr Bower claimed Charles asked his mother to “soften her antagonism” towards Camilla, but she refused.

He wrote: “But on that evening she’d had several martinis, and to Charles’ surprise she replied forcefully: she would not condone his adultery, nor forgive Camilla for not leaving Charles alone to allow his marriage to recover.

“She vented her anger that he had lied about his relationship with what she called ‘that wicked woman’, and added: ‘I want nothing to do with her.’”

A “distraught” Charles reportedly stormed out and “tearfully” phoned Camilla.

Camilla later met the Queen at the 60th birthday party of the former King of Greece, Constantine II, in 2000. This was considered an apparent seal of approval.

Some 21 years on from that meeting, the Queen now “absolutely adores” Camilla, royal expert Howard Hodgson told Express.co.uk.

He said: “The Queen gets on very well with Camilla. She didn’t really understand, and was probably guilty of believing what she might not have read, but had been told in Andrew Morton’s book ‘Diana: Her True Story’.”

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