Prince Charles’ relationship with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall goes all the way back to the early 1970s. The two quickly became close friends and eventually started seeing one another. As the relationship grew more serious, the Prince of Wales was introduced to Camilla’s family.

Ahead of the pair’s relationship, Camilla met Andrew Parker Bowles.

After an on and off relationship for years, Andrew and Camilla announced their engagement in The Times in 1973 and married on July 4 the same year.

Prince Charles went on to marry Lady Diana Spencer on July 29, 1981.

Their marriage was filled with scandals, including Charles’ affairs with Camilla Parker Bowles.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles officially divorced in 1996 and a year later, she tragically died.

However, the whole relationship situation may have been avoided, if it weren’t for Camilla’s father, it’s been claimed.

Charles and Camilla got serious when her on-again-off-again boyfriend Andrew was out of the country on army service in 1972.

A year later, in 1973, Charles travelled to the Caribbean for naval duty, and Andrew returned to London.

According to biography Prince Charles by royal author Sally Bedell Smith, that’s when Andrew’s brother and Camilla’s father conspired to make them marry.

Ms Bedell Smith wrote: “They intervened by publishing an engagement notice in The Times on March 15.

“His hand publicly forced, Andrew proposed to his girlfriend of nearly seven years.”

When Charles heard the news, “he couldn’t understand how ‘such a blissful, peaceful, and mutually happy relationship’ had ended so abruptly, after such a promising start”, she added.

However, there have been different statements on why the couple’s relationship ended in 1973.

Robert Lacey wrote in his 2008 book, Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, that Charles had met Camilla too early, and he had not asked her to wait for him when he went overseas for military duties.

Sarah Bradford wrote in her 2007 book, Diana, that a member of the close circle of his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten claimed Mountbatten arranged for Charles to be taken overseas to end the relationship with Camilla and make way for an engagement between Charles and his granddaughter Amanda Knatchbull.

Some sources suggest Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother did not approve of the marriage because she wanted Charles to marry one of the Spencer family granddaughters of her close friend, Lady Fermoy.

That is what he eventually did, and Prince Charles and Diana’s marriage went ahead in 1981.

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