Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall have now been happily married since 2005, and celebrated their 14th wedding anniversary this April. However, in the difficult months and year following Princess Diana’s untimely death, it was hard to imagine that the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall would one day have the Queen’s permission to marry. Indeed, Camilla’s acceptance into the royal fold could  have come much sooner, as the prince planned to go public with the relationship with an appearance at a glittering charity gala.

Royal biographer Penny Junor, in her 2005 book “The Firm”, claims that Charles and Camilla planned to reveal their relationship to the world before the sudden tragedy on August 31, 1997. 

Ms Junor writes: “Before Diana’s death they had been on the verge of coming out.

“[Camilla’s] birthday party at Highgrove had gone well; Diana, meanwhile, had been attracting increasingly hostile publicity for her flirtatious behaviour in the South of France with Dodi al Fayed.

“(PR advisor) Alan Kilkenny was easing Camilla gradually out of the shadows.

“They were two weeks away from a spectacular party to raise money for the national Osteoporosis Society at Camilla’s sister Annabel’s antiques business in Dorset.

“Seven hundred invitations had been sent out, at £100 apiece, and although nothing was official there were plans for the prince to pay a surprise visit to the party.

“It would have been a giant step along the path to making Camilla a legitimate part of the prince’s life – the phrase he used time and again – which was his ultimate goal.

“But those and every other plan screeched to a halted that Sunday in August when Britons awoke to the shocking news that Diana, Princess of Wales, had been killed in a car crash.”

READ MORE:

After the tragic turn of events, Charles and Camilla would not be pictured together in public until 1999. 

Ms Junor, in her 2017 biography “The Duchess”, also discusses how Camilla had to be slowly and carefully introduced to the public – and to the Royal Family – in those difficult years.

She 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 price since his marriage.

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

DON’T MISS
Camilla’s brutal first impression of Princess Diana [REVEALED]
Royal wars: How the Queen ‘wanted Camilla gone’ [EXPERT]
How Prince William was used as ‘human shield’ by Charles and Camilla [ROYAL EXPERT]

Meanwhile, biographer Andrew Morton, in his 2011 book “William and Catherine”, claims that Prince William was used strategically by Clarence House to gain positive coverage of Camilla as Charles’ new partner. 

Mr Morton writes: “While William instinctively wanted to be left alone, Camilla deliberately kept a low profile, as courtiers carefully introduced her to the wider world.

“Prince William was, as Diana’s former private secretary Patrick Jephson points out, effectively used as her ‘human shield’, information about the young prince being given out for favourable coverage of Charles and Camilla.”

Mr Morton also writes how William’s acceptance was crucial in paving the way for public attitudes to soften towards Camilla.

He continues: “The pivotal moment was the first meeting between William, whose looks and manner made him the living embodiment of the dead Princess, and her arch-rival, Charles’ mistress.

“This encounter finally took place a few days before his sixteenth birthday, on Friday June 12 at St James’s Palace.”

Royal author Penny Junor, in her 2017 biography “The Duchess”, writes that this first encounter “caught them all on the hop”.

Ms Junor writes: “Camilla was with (personal assistant) Amanda and feeling decidedly anxious, as they all were.”

However, Prince Charles “took her upstairs, introduced her to his son and left them alone to talk”.

“About half an hour later, Camilla came out saying, ‘I need a gin and tonic!’”

A few weeks later, William had asked Camilla to join him with Charles and Harry on a Mediterranean yachting holiday.

Mr Morton writes: “The signs were clear. The young prince’s presence in Camilla’s company was forgiveness for perceived as transgressions.

“For the watching media and the public, the subtext was obvious: if William could forgive, so could the rest of the world.”

Source: Read Full Article