Camilla’s heartache: How Camilla’s ‘lovers’ ruined relationship with Prince Charles
CAMILLA, the Duchess of Cornwall, finally married her real-life prince in 2005, but an expert has now revealed why Camilla and Charles didn’t get together the first time they met.
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Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, married Prince Charles in 2005, 35 years after they first met. The couple’s love story has been anything but conventional. The two first met in 1970 at a polo match in Windsor and began dating. However, Charles had to leave to serve in the Royal Navy for eight months shortly after their romance blossomed, and came home to find out Camilla was engaged to someone else.
And on July 29, 1981, Prince Charles wed Lady Diana Spencer in a fairytale wedding watched by 750 million people.
However, their marriage ended in divorce in 1996, meaning he could again chase the woman he loved, Camilla.
But the Royal Family was reportedly not interested in having Camilla as its princess.
At the time, she was perceived as an “experienced” woman, which was a nonstarter for the family back then in terms of their notion of a suitable spouse for Prince Charles.
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Royal author Richard Fitzwilliams told Express.co.uk: “When Charles fell for Camilla Shand after they met, she would not at that time have been thought suitable as a wife of the heir to the throne as she had had previous lovers.
“She mixed in a similar set to Charles and they were undoubtedly ideally suited.
“He was devastated when he subsequently heard, when abroad serving in the navy, that she and Andrew Parker Bowles had become engaged in 1973, they had had an on/off relationship for years.”
Charles and Camilla did not marry until 2005, but it is believed their love was rekindled 1972 with a short fling.
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The fling – and the pair’s subsequent affair while Camilla was still married to Andrew Parker Bowles – are chronicled in a 2018 ITV documentary entitled The Real Camilla: HRH the Duchess of Cornwall.
The narrator said: “They had a little fling in 1972, but Lord Mountbatten advised Charles: ‘Lovely for you two to have a fling, but this absolutely cannot end in marriage.’”
Camilla then married Andrew the following year in 1973, but Charles and Camilla are believed to have later had an affair, which is described by an insider on the programme.
It is claimed Camilla began an affair with Charles, who was not yet married to Princess Diana, following Andrew’s own adulterous behaviour.
The interviewee said: “She was unhappy that she was the betrayed woman. This was the real problem.
“That’s what sent her back into the arms of Prince Charles.”
However, despite some turbulent decades, Prince Charles and Camilla finally got their long-awaited happy ending in 2005 when they married in a civil ceremony.
And although Charles’ mother, the Queen, did not attend, she did turn up at the reception.
Camilla was given the title, “Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall.”
Fourteen years later, they still appear to be happily married.