Everything about Camilla Parker Bowles totally explained
The Duchess of Cornwall, in Scotland known as
The Duchess of Rothesay (Camilla Rosemary; formerly Parker Bowles;
née Shand, born
17 July 1947) is the second wife of
Charles, Prince of Wales (who is also
Duke of Cornwall and
Rothesay), the
heir apparent to the thrones of the
United Kingdom and the other 15
Commonwealth Realms.
Before their marriage she'd been his long-time mistress. As the consort of the Prince of Wales she's legally
HRH The Princess of Wales; although she's officially styled "
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall" ("Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Rothesay" in
Scotland). Although this is unconventional, it avoids a conflict with the princely title which is closely identified by the public with her husband's first wife, the late
Diana, Princess of Wales.
Early life
Christened
Camilla Rosemary Shand and known since childhood as "Milla", she spent her early youth in the village of
Plumpton, East Sussex,
England, where the family home stood opposite the Plumpton Racecourse.
She attended Dumbelles School in
Sussex, as well as
Queen's Gate School in
Kensington; later she attended Mon Fertile, a
finishing school in
Switzerland.
She made her
debut in London in 1965. In her youth she worked for a year at the London decorators, Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler.
The Duchess of Cornwall's parents were the late Major
Bruce Shand, a
British Army officer turned
wine merchant, who died of cancer on
11 June 2006, and the late Hon. Rosalind Cubitt, eldest child of
Roland Calvert Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe. She has one brother,
Mark, and a sister, Annabel.
Before her wedding in 1973, Camilla had been the girlfriend of Prince Charles. However, she wasn't seen by the Royal Family as suitable bride, so they were not permitted to marry.
In 1973, the then-Camilla Shand married
Andrew Parker Bowles, a
Roman Catholic. They had two children together,
Tom, born in 1974 and a godson of
Prince Charles, and
Laura, born in 1978. The children were both raised as Roman Catholics. Tom attended Eton, while Laura attended the Roman Catholic
St Mary's Convent School,
Shaftesbury. Andrew and Camilla were divorced on
3 March 1995.
Family history
According to genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner, her ancestry is French, English, Dutch, and Scottish.
Relationship with the Prince of Wales
The relationship between Camilla and the Prince of Wales began in 1970, after they met at a polo match before either of them was married. Camilla Shand was married in 1973 to Andrew Parker Bowles, an Army officer, friend of the Prince of Wales.
The friendship and affair between the Prince of Wales and the Parker Bowleses carried on after the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Charles confirmed the affair in a televised interview with
Jonathan Dimbleby. Camilla and her husband carried on extramarital affairs during their marriage. It is said that Prince Charles and Camilla became lovers during this time, while her husband Andrew Parker Bowles took a long-term companion, Rosemary Pitman (née Dickinson), whom he later married.
Charles was at this time Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regiment of Wales, in which a junior officer Captain Christopher Elliot had spent two years as an Equerry to the Prince in London, accompanied by his wife Annabel, Camilla's sister. He and his wife re-joined the regiment in
Osnabrück, northern Germany, in the early/mid-1970s. Camilla is known to have visited her sister and brother-in-law in Germany. Charles made annual weekend-long visits to the regiment during the 1970s, and it's said that it was during this period that he discreetly resumed his relationship with Camilla.
Captain Elliot retired as a major-general in the early 2000s, having been at one time the youngest lieutenant-colonel in the Army. He and his wife remained close to the Prince of Wales throughout his career. It was Annabel Elliot's birthday party at the Ritz, during one of her husband's many London postings, which provided the first public occasion at which Charles and Camilla allowed themselves to be photographed — the success of the opportunity provided the template for many more.
The Prince's first wife,
Diana, Princess of Wales, publicly blamed the relationship between her husband and Camilla for the break-up of the Wales's marriage. She commented in the
BBC programme
Panorama, "Well there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." ; privately, the Princess referred to Camilla as "the
Rottweiler". Diana reported that Camilla had known before she did that the Prince of Wales was going to propose to her. The Prince and Mrs Parker Bowles exchanged presents and used the pet nicknames of "Fred" and "Gladys" one to the other. (These were based on their attachment to the British comedy group, the
Goons.)
The affair became public knowledge upon the publication of
Diana: Her True Story, followed by the
Camillagate scandal (when a racy phone conversation between Camilla and Charles was secretly recorded and published) and Diana's television interview about her failing marriage. These revelations made Camilla unpopular. However, an assertion that Camilla was pelted with bread rolls in a supermarket by shoppers, though often repeated in the media, has been denied by her friends, who suggest that it was a
tabloid media invention that has ended up becoming an
urban myth.
It is often asserted that the couple's affair had been conducted throughout the Prince's engagement, and that they'd been intimate on the night before Charles's marriage to Diana, charges that were unsubstantiated. Though the timing of these tangled relationships has been much discussed and dissected, reliable published reports indicate that they renewed their romantic relationship in the early 1980s, much prior to the timeframe of Diana's involvement with
James Hewitt outside the marriage. After the Prince of Wales's public admission, in a television interview with
Jonathan Dimbleby, that he'd committed adultery, the Parker Bowleses announced their own divorce in 1995. They had been living apart for some time, and Andrew Parker Bowles remarried a year later.
Though she maintains a residence in
Wiltshire, the Duchess of Cornwall primarily lives at
Highgrove House and at
Clarence House, the former residence of the late
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, which is now the Prince of Wales's official London residence. He spent his early childhood in the house, which was the first residence of his newlywed parents, the present
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and
the Duke of Edinburgh. British newspapers reported in early 2005, in articles about the finances of the Prince of Wales, that, even though they were not married at the time, the prince paid for her jewels and designer wardrobe (among the designers are
Giorgio Armani and
Oscar de la Renta) and the decoration of her two-room Clarence House quarters by designer Robert Kime.
Since the civil marriage of Charles and Camilla, it has been revealed that they're ninth cousins once removed.
Marriage to the Prince of Wales
On
10 February 2005, it was announced that Camilla and the Prince of Wales would marry on
8 April 2005 at
Windsor Castle with a civil service followed by a Church of England service.
On
4 April, it was announced that the civil wedding would be postponed 24 hours until
9 April, so that the Prince of Wales could attend the
funeral of Pope John Paul II as the representative of the Queen.
The civil marriage ceremony took place at the
Guildhall, Windsor, instead of the castle, as a wedding licence for
Windsor Castle would have been required and a standard condition would be for it to accept public weddings for a minimum of three years. The service was attended by close members of the couple's family.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh didn't attend the civil marriage ceremony. The Queen's reluctance to attend a civil marriage ceremony arose from her position as
Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Queen and Duke did attend the Church of England service of blessing at St George's Chapel following the civil ceremony (officiated by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, The Most Revd Dr.
Rowan Williams), and held a reception for the couple in Windsor Castle afterwards.
Following the wedding, the couple travelled to
Birkhall, the Prince's country home in
Scotland, near
Balmoral Castle. The new couple carried out their first royal duties together during their honeymoon. To the surprise of her critics, Camilla's choice of clothes for her wedding day won widespread media praise, with the
News of the World calling her outfits "sensational".
Since her marriage, Camilla has been known as
HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, except in Scotland, where she's styled
HRH The Duchess of Rothesay.
Royal duties
Following the royal wedding, the
Duchess of Cornwall began to undertake a range of royal duties. Initially, these involved accompanying the Prince of Wales in his official obligations, however the Duchess also began to perform her own solo duties, first visiting a hospital in
Southampton. She attended the
Trooping the Colour ceremony in London for the first time in June, 2005, and made her first appearance on the balcony of
Buckingham Palace afterwards. The following month Camilla accompanied her husband on a visit to St. Mary's Hospital in Paddington, to meet with victims of the
July 7 bombings.
Camilla began to participate in overseas visits, starting with, along with Prince Charles, a royal tour of the
United States in November of 2005. In March the following year, the couple went on a royal tour through
Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, and
India, throughout which Camilla won praises for her persistence and down-to-earth attitude. The Duchess has also visited
Pakistan,
Kuwait,
Qatar, the
UAE, and
Bahrain.
On
8 June 2007, the Duchess conducted the
naming ceremony for
HMS Astute, the first of a new class of attack submarine for the
Royal Navy. Following this, it was announced in September that Camilla would name the new
Cunard cruise ship,
MS Queen Victoria, regarding which it was claimed that The Queen had expressed "surprise". The Duchess conducted the ceremony at
Southampton on
10 December 2007, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, where the traditional champagne bottle failed to break on impact – sometimes regarded as an ill-portent for the cruiser.
Camilla was praised by
war reporter Michael Yon for her unstinting support of the troops of
4 Rifles during
Operation Telic including sending bottles of
whiskey to the wounded men.
Personal life
She is a dedicated horse-rider and was a
fox hunter until it was banned under the
Hunting Act 2004.
In March 2007 she'd a
hysterectomy, which was rumoured to have been to treat cancer. However, no details of the reasons for the procedure have been confirmed.
On Sunday
26 August 2007, in a statement released to the press, Camilla announced that she wouldn't be attending Diana's Memorial Service on Friday 31st August, as she wished not to "divert attention from the purpose of the occasion which is to focus on the life and service of Diana". Camilla had already initially accepted the offer from her stepsons Princes
William and
Harry in December 2006, and after advice and discussions came to the conclusion that she'd rather not attend, in order not to provoke any tension between the public and herself, due to continued public appreciation of Diana, Princess of Wales.
(External Link
)
Camilla became a grandmother on
9 October 2007, when her son
Tom Parker-Bowles and his wife Sara had a daughter named Lola. On the 17th January 2008, her second grandchild, Eliza, was born to her daughter
Laura Lopes.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
Camilla's full titles are
Her Royal Highness The Princess Charles Philip Arthur George, Princess of Wales and Countess of Chester, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay, Countess of Carrick, Baroness of Renfrew, Lady of the Isles, Princess of Scotland
Duchess
As she's the consort and wife of the Prince of Wales, Camilla legally holds the
title of
Princess of Wales. Because this style is so strongly associated with the late Diana, Princess of Wales, by authority of the Queen, Camilla is styled with the feminine form of her husband's subsidiary title,
Duke of Cornwall, rather than Princess of Wales. Her Royal Highness has also received the
Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II, two years after her marriage. She first wore the honour in public during the 2007 Saudi state visit to Britain with the Honeycomb tiara which had belonged to the late Queen Mother.
Royal consort
Clarence House has indicated that when Charles ascends the throne it's intended that she'll use the title
HRH The Princess Consort. Commentators have pointed out that unless a specific
Act of Parliament is passed to the contrary, she will, as a King's wife,
legally be Queen, regardless of whether she uses that title or not.
The matter was recently discussed by historian Sir
Roy Strong, who gave his personal opinion that Camilla will be crowned Queen.
British Honours
Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II, before 30 October 2007
Commonwealth Realms Honours
Commemorative Medal for the Centennial of Saskatchewan 2005 (External Link)
Honorary military appointments
Royal Colonel, of 4th Battalion The Rifles
Commodore-in-Chief, of Naval Medical Services
According to Michael Yon, Camilla sent a hand-written letter to every wounded soldier and to the family of every soldier that died when 4 Rifles was in Iraq. She also sent expensive scotch and invited families to her home.
Arms
On 17 July 2005, the Duchess's 58th birthday, Clarence House unveiled a coat of arms for Camilla's use. It impales her husband's main coat of arms to the dexter (viewer's left) with her father's to sinister (viewer's right), all surmounted by her husband's coronet as heir-apparent.
According to reports in the news media, the arms were authorized and granted by the Queen, who was said to have taken a "keen interest" in its development, along with Charles and Camilla; the arms itself were prepared by Peter Gwynn-Jones, Garter Principal King of Arms. However, aside from the invention of a boar supporter (reflecting her paternal arms) for the sinister side, the arms are entirely consistent with the historical heraldic arrangement for a married woman who isn't herself a heraldic heiress.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Camilla Parker Bowles'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://camilla__duchess_of_cornwall.totallyexplained.com">Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
