Camilla and Prince Charles celebrated 14 years of marriage earlier this year, and the Duchess is set for another celebration today as she turns 72. The Duchess of Cornwall’s relationship with Charles stretches all the way back to the early Seventies, when the pair first met. However, she would soon make a massive life decision that would “break Charles’ heart”.

In her 2017 book “The Duchess: The Untold Story”, royal biographer Penny Junor describes how, in 1973, Camilla broke the news to Charles – who was stationed with the Navy in the Caribbean – that she was engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles. 

Ms Junor writes: “She wrote to Charles herself to tell him. It broke his heart.

“He fired off anguished letters to his nearest and dearest.

“He did have one last-ditch attempt to get Camilla to change her mind, however.

“He wrote to her the week before the wedding asking her not to marry Andrew.

“Nevertheless, the wedding went ahead.

“Her mother, Rosalind, was not entirely happy about it – she didn’t think Andrew treated her daughter very well – but Camilla was determined.”

Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles married on July 4, 1973, in the chapel at Wellington Barracks, London.

Ms Junor continues: “The Prince of Wales had been invited to the wedding but didn’t come.

“He was still in the Caribbean and that day had a commitment in Nassau, representing the Queen.

“He denied it, but it has long been assumed that he stayed away because he couldn’t bear to watch the person her loved walk down the aisle with someone else.”

In addition to Camilla’s determination to marry Andrew, royal author Richard Fitzwilliams explained how she would not have been deemed  a “suitable” match for Charles at the time.

He told Express.co.uk: “When Charles fell for Camilla Shand after they met, she would not at that time have been thought suitable as a wife of the heir to the throne as she had had previous lovers.

“She mixed in a similar set to Charles and they were undoubtedly ideally suited.

“He was devastated when he subsequently heard, when abroad serving in the Navy, that she and Andrew Parker Bowles had become engaged in 1973.”

Former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, in her 2007 book “The Diana Chronicles”, also  reveals how there was another royal affair intersecting with Charles and Camilla’s at the time. 

She writes: “One of [Andrew Parker Bowles’] earlier diversions was a torrid affair with Princess Anne, who, in her stern way, has always enjoyed a roll in the hay.

“There was a romantic re-enactment of ‘La Ronde’ on the dance floor at Annabel’s one night in 1971 when it was clear that Princess Anne was in love with Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla was in love with him too, and Charles was in love with Camilla.”

Charles and Camilla reignited their love affair in late 1978 or 1979 but the prince broke things off when he became engaged to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

However, in 1994, in his “disastrous” interview with the BBC’s Jonathan Dimbleby, Prince Charles admitted that he had tried to be faithful in his marriage to Princess Diana “until it became irretrievably broken down” in around 1986.

In his 2011 book “William and Catherine”, Andrew Morton claims that William and Harry were left “troubled” by their father’s interview.

He writes:  “It was left to Diana to console her children, once again making the trip to their school in Berkshire.

“On the Morning of October 17, 1994, she met her troubled children in the headmaster’s study at Ludgrove.”

According to Mr Morton, William asked Diana: “Is it true, Mother? Is it true that Daddy never loved you?”

After the untimely death of Princess Diana in 1997, Prince Charles tenaciously stuck by Camilla as his partner, even though the Queen “wanted her gone”.

Ms Junor writes: “The Queen had wanted [Camilla] gone before Diana’s death and she felt no differently after it.

“It was nothing personal. She had been very fond of Camilla in all the years she had been married to Andrew, but it was Camilla who had been responsible, wittingly or not, for all the disasters that had befallen the prince since his marriage.”

However, she continues: “[Charles] made it perfectly clear to anyone who would listen that Camilla was a non-negotiable part of his life.”

The pair were eventually able to marry in 2005, and celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary this April. 

Today, the royal couple will attend an event the mark the 70th anniversary of the National Parks at a Big Picnic in Exmoor National Park.

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