Charles and Camilla’s milestones and scandals – leaked calls, affair and Diana showdown

King Charles and Queen Camilla have been married for 21 years, but their relationship has been marred by scandal, heartbreak and missed opportunities spanning five decades – here’s a look back at their tumultuous journey

This is no fairytale romance. Instead, King Charles and Queen Camilla’s love story is one defined by controversy, heartache and missed opportunities – spanning five turbulent decades.

Had they met in today’s world, their relationship might have been welcomed wholeheartedly by a more forward-thinking Royal Family. But back then, it was regarded as ill-fated from the outset.

Camilla, with her passion for horses and unpretentious charm, was the perfect lively counterpart to Charles’ sensitive nature. Yet their relationship was considered unsuitable for a future king. For one thing, Camilla didn’t fit the mould of the “ideal” royal bride – rumoured not to meet the outdated expectation of being a virgin – and she didn’t hail from aristocratic lineage.

Accepting that a future together appeared out of reach, they both wed other people. Those marriages would ultimately end in divorce, yet their love never dimmed. With the couple marking their 21st wedding anniversary, we take a look back at the highs and lows of their journey – and the countless obstacles they conquered to be together.

First meeting

Charles and Camilla first met in 1970 at a polo match in Windsor Great Park, with their mutual friend Lucia Santa Cruz introducing them. The two instantly clicked, with Camilla reportedly breaking the ice with a cheeky quip about her own great-grandmother’s affair with King Edward VII, allegedly telling Charles: “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common.”

According to royal biographer Penny Junor, Charles was instantly besotted. “He loved the fact that she smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth, and laughed at the same silly things as he did,” Junor wrote in her book, The Duchess: The Untold Story.

“He also liked that she was so natural and easy and friendly, not in any way overawed by him, not fawning or sycophantic. In short, he was very taken with her, and after that first meeting he began ringing her up.”

Charles’ heartbreak

The couple courted steadily until Charles departed to serve in Royal Navy in the Caribbean for eight months. However, as Charles’s relative Patricia Mountbatten confided to author Sally Bedell Smith, there were “obvious problems” with the prospect of Camilla wedding the future King.

Though it appears outdated now, Camilla’s romantic history counted heavily against her. “The conventions of the time called for the heir to the British throne to marry a woman who at least appeared to be virginal,” Bedell Smith wrote. “You didn’t want a past that hung about,” Mountbatten said. Knowing that marriage was never on the cards, the pair reluctantly brought their romance to an end. By the time Charles returned, Camilla was already engaged to his sister Anne’s former partner, Andrew Parker Bowles. They tied the knot in 1973 and remained together until 1995.

Charles is said to have been utterly heartbroken and reportedly attempted to prevent Camilla from marrying Andrew. According to Penny Junor: “It seemed to him particularly cruel, he wrote in one letter, that after ‘such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship,’ fate had decreed that it should last a mere six months.” Despite his heartache, the two remained firm friends.

Affair

By late 1978 or early 1979, the ill-fated lovers are believed to have embarked on an affair – of which Andrew Parker Bowles was reportedly fully aware. “Andrew was in no position to complain; and when he discovered what was going on, he wisely didn’t make a fuss,” Junor wrote.

“Some would say that a part of him actually quite enjoyed the fact that his wife was sleeping with the future King; he might have felt differently had Charles been a traveling salesman.”

Diana

Yet their rekindled romance did nothing to change the fact that Charles needed to find a wife, and in 1980 he began courting the late Diana Spencer. Born into nobility and reputedly still a virgin, the 19-year-old was considered the ideal match for Charles, who was then 32. However, their marriage was doomed from the very beginning. The pair reportedly met only 13 times in six months before he proposed on 3 February 1981. Following the engagement, Diana was relocated to Buckingham Palace for security reasons, where she is reported to have felt very alone and isolated.

While Charles was touring Australia, Camilla made contact and invited Diana for lunch, where she apparently questioned the future Princess of Wales extensively about her hunting intentions.

“The friendly note invited her to lunch. It was during that meeting, arranged to coincide with Prince Charles’ trip to Australia and New Zealand, that Diana became suspicious. Camilla kept asking if Diana was going to hunt when she moved to Highgrove,” Andrew Morton wrote in his book, Diana: Her True Story-In Her Own Words.

“Nonplussed by such an odd question, Diana replied in the negative. The relief on Camilla’s face was clear. Diana later realised that Camilla saw Charles’ love of hunting as a conduit to maintaining her own relationship with him.”

The bracelet

Shortly before Charles and Diana’s wedding in July 1981, Diana famously uncovered a bracelet that her husband-to-be had commissioned for Camilla. Made from solid gold, it bore a pendant inscribed with the letters F and G – thought to represent Fred and Gladys, Charles and Camilla’s nicknames inspired by a sketch from The Goon Show. Diana was furious but claimed that Charles remained adamant about personally delivering the present to his former flame just two days before their wedding. And while on honeymoon, Charles donned cufflinks bearing two interlocking C’s – a token from Camilla.

“I said, ‘Camilla gave you those didn’t she?’ He said, ‘Yes, so what’s wrong? They’re a present from a friend,'” Diana once recalled. “And boy, did we have a row. Jealousy, total jealousy. And it was such a good idea, the two C’s, but it wasn’t that clever.”

Affair 2.0

As Charles and Diana’s marriage crumbled, he allegedly rekindled his affair with Camilla in 1986. Diana maintained she knew exactly what was happening and begged Camilla to back off. In recordings she created for author Andrew Morton’s book, she remembered confronting her romantic rival, confessing, “I was terrified of her.

“I said, ‘I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that. She said to me, ‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. All the men in the world fall in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more would you want?’… So I said, ‘I want my husband.'”

Diana added: “‘I’m sorry I’m in the way… and it must be hell for both of you. But I do know what’s going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot.'” In an interview with ITV in 1994, Prince Charles was asked if he attempted to be “faithful and honourable” to Princess Diana when they were married. As his relationship with Camilla had already been made public, Prince Charles responded: “Yes … until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.” He also remarked of Camilla, “Mrs. Parker Bowles is a great friend of mine … a friend for a very long time. She will continue to be a friend for a very long time.”

‘Tampongate’

Merely three months after Charles and Diana publicly separated, an intimate phone call between Charles and his lover Camilla, which had taken place back in 1989, was leaked to the press. Along with the leaked transcript came a recording of the complete audio.

Throughout the exchange, the then-Prince of Wales mentioned being reincarnated as a sanitary product so he could be nearer to his lover.

Camilla joked that he could transform into a pair of knickers, before Charles suggested becoming a period product instead. “God forbid, a Tampax. Just my luck!” he laughed. “My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on forever swirling round on the top, never going down. Until the next one comes through.”

Diana’s response to the scandalous recording was disclosed by former personal protection officer Ken Wharfe in his book Guarding Diana: Protecting The Princess Around The World. Reportedly initially thrilled, Diana apparently remarked: “Game, set and match,” as she held a copy of the transcript. However, she was reportedly taken aback by the content of the exchange. “Later, however, she told me that she had been genuinely shocked by some of the baser comments, particular the Prince’s tampon reference,” Mr Wharfe added.

Going public

Following years of controversy and speculation, Charles and Camilla eventually made their relationship official a year after Diana’s death in 1997. The couple were captured on camera together for the very first time at the Ritz for Camilla’s sister’s birthday celebration in 1999.

The now Queen Consort subsequently relocated to the official London residence of Clarence House in 2003. Two years afterwards, the pair formally revealed their engagement before tying the knot on April 9, 2005 – 35 years after their initial meeting. At the time, Charles issued a statement describing the occasion as a “very special day for us and our families”.

While Princes William and Harry also issued a statement, saying: “We are both very happy for our father and Camilla, and we wish them all the luck in the future.”

Meeting William and Harry

Charles recognised he needed to wait for the appropriate moment before presenting his former partner as his new companion to his sons William and Harry.

The princes were fully conscious of the adultery in their parents’ marriage and witnessed their acrimonious divorce unfold.

According to royal commentator Angela Levin, the introduction eventually occurred shortly before the boys organised a surprise 50th birthday celebration for their father. In her book Camilla: From Outcast to Queen Consort, Levin claimed that William and Harry were aware Charles would have wanted Camilla at the celebration, but felt it appropriate to meet her privately beforehand, away from the public gaze.

William went first and a London encounter was arranged for 12 June, 1998. Levin wrote: “William turned up unexpectedly early. Camilla offered to disappear, but her aide, Amanda MacManus, suggested it would be a good idea if they met earlier. William agreed.

“They talked for about half an hour and their meeting apparently went as well as could be hoped. The Prince was friendly and Camilla was sensitive enough to let the relationship progress at his pace and not ask difficult questions.”

Several weeks on, William and Camilla got together for another lunch. It then fell to younger brother Harry to meet his future stepmother. He is thought to have shared a more difficult relationship with Camilla, yet their initial meeting was reportedly a success.

Queen’s snub before acceptance

Despite Charles being deeply committed to Camilla, his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, refused to meet her for a considerable period.

It was not until 2000 that the late Queen accepted an invitation to King Constantine of Greece’s 60th birthday party, held at Charles’s Highgrove residence, where Camilla was also in attendance.

Yet last year, in a message marking the 70th anniversary of her reign, she expressed it as her “sincere wish” that Camilla would be known as Britain’s Queen Consort when her son ascended to the throne. In her own words, the late monarch wrote: “And when, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me; and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”