When love is real, nothing can stop it. For official matters, that’s what happened to Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, the protagonists of one of the most complex and controversial relationships in recent Royal Family history.
It all began in 1970 when they met at a polo match. Charles was 21 and one of the most eligible bachelors; Camilla was 23 and was in a kind of formal relationship. They had plenty of things in common and had very similar personalities.
So, what happened? According to several theories, one of them appearing in the famous Netflix show, The Crown, the Royal Family did not see Camilla as a good prospect for the young heir. It is even believed that the Queen made arrangements to send Charles far away to the Bahamas with the Navy to put up some distance and to push Camilla to give up on that relationship and marry Andrew Parker.
Prince Charles, in turn, was pressured into marrying and producing an heir, so when Diana Spencer entered the picture, it was a done deal. Camilla even attended the wedding with her son, and the world got to see Diana looking at her as she walked down the aisle because she was aware of her and Charles’ affair. But we are getting ahead of the story.
Although some things in the story were true (especially the part where Diana found out about their affair before the wedding), the theory of a conspiracy to separate Camilla and Charles has been questioned by many biographers of the Royal Family. According to Sally Bedell Smith, the only complot (if there ever was) was actually made by Camilla and Andrew Parker’s families.
According to the biographer, their parents were tired of their constant fights and decided to announce the engagement without consulting them so they would be forced to get married, which they did in 1973. With his true love married, Charles decided to do the same.
Charles and Camilla kept on seeing each other because they moved in the same social circles. Two years after the death of Princess Diana, they made their first public appearance together; however, they waited until 2005 to get married.
Charles has always claimed that Camilla was her only and true love, and finally, after decades and several tragedies, they’ve been together for over 16 years! Still, even when theirs is a true love story that managed to thrive against the obstacles, that doesn’t mean that both of them betrayed and hurt people that loved them, being Diana the most wronged of the story.
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