Camilla Parker Bowles: What the Duchess of Cornwall did before she met Prince Charles
CAMILLA PARKER Bowles, now known as the Duchess of Cornwall, has been married to Prince Charles since 2005, after the couple enjoyed a romance before and during his marriage to Princess Diana.
Prince Charles' secret message to Camilla during engagement
Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall, 71, and Prince Charles, 70, will celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary in April this year. The Duke and Duchess enjoyed a short romance before he married Princess Diana, then 18, as he and Camilla split before he joined the Royal Navy. Upon Charles’ return eight months later, Camilla was engaged to Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles. The pair were first introduced through a mutual friend and instantly bonded, continuing their relationship despite each of their marriages.
Camilla was also said to be “very self-confident and great fun to be around” – something only proved when she danced with fellow event goers at a royal engagement this week
But what was Camilla’s life like in earlier years?
Camilla, born Camilla Shand, was born on 17 July 1947.
The now-Duchess worked as an assistant at interior design store Colefax and Fowler in Lodndon’s Mayfair in the mid-60s.
Prince Charles’ wife was known as a sociable debutante, living in a Belgravia flat with flatmate Lady Moyra Campbell.
Camilla also apparently owned a Mini and was described as “somewhat ahead of her time” by Compton Miller, author of Who’s Really Who.
Miller said the Duchess was: “Unlike the naïve, blushing ‘gels’ who were Camilla’s fellow debutantes in 1965, she was already an habitué of nightclubs such as the Garrison and the Saddle Room.
“Going to the sort of nightclubs where your parents were also likely to go could have been fraught with inter-generational embarrassment.”
Camilla was also said to be “very self-confident and great fun to be around” – something only proved when she danced with fellow event goers at a royal engagement this week.
The mother of two was educated at Queen’s Gate School before finishing school in Switzerland and France.
Her father, Major Bruce Shand, spent 16 years in the royal household as Clerk of the Cheque and Adjutant of the Yeomen of the Guard.
Her mother belonged to the wealthy Cubit family who had built Belgravia and Pimlico.
Biographer Gyles Brandreth said her parents “had position”.
He said: “She smoked, something that young girls at that time didn’t do – and certainly not debutantes.”
Charles and Camilla met in 1970 at a Windsor Polo match, where she apparently told the future King: “My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather’s mistress, so how about it?”
But when Charles joined the Royal Navy the pair went their separate ways and she married Andrew Parker Bowles, a Guards officer 10 years her senior, two years later.
They welcomed two children together, Tom and Laura, but her feelings for Charles never faltered.
In 1980 Charles began dating Lady Diana Spencer and they were married one year later at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Over the next 30 years both Charles and Camilla’s marriages broke down and Camilla divorced Andrew in 1995, while Charles and Diana divorced in 1996, one year before her tragic death in Paris.
Charles and Camilla rekindled their relationship and went on to marry in 2005, 35 years after they first met.