CAMILLA. At the coronation of King Charles III of England on May 6, 2023, his wife Camilla Parker-Bowles will also be crowned as Queen Consort. A ceremony for which she called on Princess Diana’s favorite stylist for her dress!
[Updated 21st April 2023 11:46am] King Charles III of England will be crowned on 6th May 2023 at Westminster Abbey. After the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, which shook the whole world, there is no doubt that millions of people will follow the ceremony. If eyes will be on the new sovereign, the wife of King Charles III, Camilla Parker-Bowles, will also be crowned at his side. During Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee, on February 6, 2022, the former sovereign had indeed indicated that she wanted Camilla to become queen consort upon her death.
For her dress, Camilla Parker-Bowles enlisted the talents of a well-known designer from the royal family: Bruce Oldfield. The 72-year-old British stylist and fashion designer worked for ten years with Princess Diana, the first wife of King Charles III who died in 1997, reports Gala. Princess Diana had also confided that he was her favorite stylist, indicates the magazine. If this choice may surprise given the stormy relations between the two women, the stylist Bruce Oldfield and the queen consort are not their first collaboration.
As Gala indicates, Bruce Oldfield has indeed produced several outfits for Camilla Parker-Bowles at various important ceremonies. “Camilla has had a very close friendship with Bruce for many years, so it’s a natural and obvious fit in many ways,” a source familiar with the matter told British tabloid The Sun. While Bruce Oldfield hasn’t commented on the upcoming coronation ceremony, the British daily reports that the stylist has said in the past that he “gave Diana her glamor and Camilla her confidence.” We will therefore have to wait until May 6 to discover the dress made by Bruce Oldfield. On the other hand, we already know that Camilla will wear during this ceremony the crown worn by Queen Consort Marie de Teck during the coronation of King George V in 1911. In order to pay homage to Elizabeth II, diamonds belonging to the late queen have been added to this crown, reports The Sun.
Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of King Charles III, has become queen consort and appears alongside her husband. Thus, she was present in Cardiff with the king, during his official visit, Friday September 16, 2022, but was also his witness during the official proclamation as king of Charles III. The woman, who met Charles at a polo match in the late 70s, has been touted as the love of his life and the one responsible for the divorce between Charles and Lady Diana. She was often mocked by the British press for her outfits or for her physique, reports Le Monde. Elizabeth II herself was reluctant towards Camilla and only authorized the lovers’ marriage in 2005. It was then not until February 2022 that Elizabeth II expressed the wish that Camilla Parker-Bowles become queen spouse at his death.
To the public, the Queen Consort was a home wrecker, following Diana’s 1995 BBC interview where the Princess revealed there were “three people” in her marriage. After the death of Lady Di, who was very popular, Camilla Parker-Bowles is condemned to “media purgatory”, indicates Le Monde in a portrait of the new queen consort. Her image improved during the 2000s, as her constant support for Charles was highlighted. Since the death of his mother, the king has also mentioned several times “his very dear wife”, underlining the robustness of the bond which unites the couple. Attention should therefore be increasingly focused on Camilla, who, after many years in the shadows, is brought to the forefront of the media scene. But what does her new role as queen consort mean? What functions should it perform?
Queen consort is an honorary title given to the wife of a king and to which Camilla claims as the wife of King Charles III of England. If by this title, Camilla reaches the same rank and the same status as the king, she remains deprived of all the powers available to the sovereign. The Crown of England today plays a mainly ceremonial role and no longer intervenes in public affairs, but retains some institutional powers: it sits in Parliament, it formalizes the appointment of the government and can also open or dissolve the government. The only case where Charles III can exercise his royal prerogative is “in the event of a serious constitutional crisis”, but this scenario never arose during the reign of Elizabeth II. Camilla, as queen consort, will therefore have no power. On the other hand, she is one of the first representatives of the Crown of England. A role that she already ensured as Duchess of Cornwall, when Charles III was only a prince, with many commitments in the associative field. She is notably the godmother of a dozen associations.
Camilla Shand was born on July 17, 1947 in London, into the English bourgeoisie. Her father is Major Bruce Shand, a British Army officer turned wine merchant, while her mother, Rosalind Cubitt, is from the Ashcombe family of barons. Camilla follows a brilliant career in the best private establishments in London and Switzerland, and evolves in the same circles as Prince Charles. The two lovers met for the first time during a polo match in Windsor in 1971. They then began a romance before the prince joined the Royal Navy the same year.
Camilla then fell in love and thus married Major Andrew Parker-Bowles, with whom she had two children. She was also the one who pushed Prince Charles to marry Lady Diana in 1981. Even though Camilla and Charles were both married, they resumed their affair, which burst into the open and led to the divorce of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1996. Shortly after, the couple formalized their relationship without obtaining the blessing of Queen Elizabeth II. Camilla then begins a long process of seduction to find her place within the royal family, with the children of Charles and Lady Di, William and Harry, but also with the sovereign.
After years of effort, the Duchess of Cornwall seems to have succeeded. She is now considered an asset to the English crown. Endowed with a natural empathy, she is involved in many charitable actions. Thus, she is the godmother of Emmaus United Kingdom and of the Barnardo’s association, involved in helping children in great difficulty. She is also president of the National Society for the Fight against Osteoporosis, a disease that affects the human skeleton. Camilla Parker-Bowles is particularly involved in the fight against this disease since she took away her grandmother and her mother…
Camilla has therefore fully integrated, over time, into the royal family. That’s why, during Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee on February 6, 2022, the Sovereign made it known that she was in favor of her son’s companion, Prince Charles, becoming Queen Consort at his death. It is now done since her husband has become king of England.
If the most illustrious love triangle of the British crown remains undoubtedly that of Camilla, Charles and Diana, the new queen consort has also been at the heart of another love conflict. Thus, when Camilla meets Andrew Parker-Bowles, a British army officer, he has a relationship with Princess Anne, daughter of Elizabeth II. But the marriage between the two lovers at the time is impossible, the officer being Catholic. Andrew Parker-Bowles then decides to propose to Camilla Shand. They said “yes” to each other in 1973. From this union, two children were born: Laura Lopes and Tony Parker-Bowles. The marriage will last 22 years. In 1995, the two spouses decided to divorce.
Camilla Shand and Prince Charles met for the first time during a polo game organized in Windsor in 1971. Like Queen Elizabeth II, she was fond of horse riding and quickly fell in love with the sovereign’s son. The two lovers then have a brief affair before Charles enlists in the Royal Navy. Their paths diverge. Camilla marries Andrew Parker-Bowles. Staying in contact with the Prince of Wales, she encouraged him in 1981 to marry Diana.
While they are each married, Camilla and Charles resume their affair. It will be necessary to wait for their respective divorces in 1995 (Andrew and Camilla Parker-Bowles) and 1996 (Charles and Diana) to see the two lovers appear in public. However, Camilla’s popularity rating was tarnished, especially with the death of Diana in 1997. The civil marriage of Charles and Camilla in 2005 did not change anything. Even today, the British are divided about the new Queen consort. She remains one of the least beloved members of the royal family. A YouGov poll in 2022 credited her with 40% favorable opinions. Furthermore, less than half of the English wanted her to become queen consort. But according to royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams, “people realize that Camilla is ideal for Charles and that they work wonderfully well as a team,” he told AFP.
When you know the history of the rivalry between Diana and Camilla, hard to imagine that it was the new queen consort of the Kingdom of England who insisted that Charles marry “Lady Di”. After the marriage of the Prince of Wales, in 1981, the princely couple regularly saw Camilla and Andrew Parker-Bowles, and went on weekends to the countryside, all four of them. It’s hard to say if it was during this period that Camilla and Charles became lovers again. According to the prince, it would be in 1986, once he got wind of his wife’s adulterous story. Diana will deny and claim otherwise.
In his book titled A Well-Kept Secret, Princess Diana’s former bodyguard, Ken Wharfe, recounts a scene that pretty much sums up the love rivalry that existed at the time between the three protagonists. In 1989, Diana goes to the birthday party of Annabel Elliott, Camilla’s sister. As the dinner ends, she finds that Charles, who had the unpleasant surprise of seeing his wife show up at the birthday party, has isolated himself with Camilla and another guest in a living room. The intrepid princess decides to confront them: “Don’t take me for an idiot, I know what’s going on”, she would have told them. Camilla reportedly replied, “But you have it all, you can have all the men you want!” An answer not to the taste of the princess, the latter launching: “Well, it is my husband that I want.”
Isabelle Rivère, a French royalty specialist, estimated in Elle that there is a real point that differentiates the two women: “Diana and Camilla are alike in many ways, but there is one that will distinguish them forever. Diana, as a child, suffered from a lack of love, of recognition, and she saw her mother leave home when she was only seven years old. never recovers. Camilla, adored by her family, has always had an unshakable confidence in herself.”
