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A Complete Timeline of King Charles and Queen Camilla's Complicated Relationship

06/05/2023 - 02:40 PM

Prince Charles is officially King Charles [1], and that means his wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, is now Queen Camilla. The pair first met all the way back in 1970, but their love story took a long and complicated road before they officially tied the knot in 2005. Famously, when then-Prince Charles married Princess Diana [2] in 1981, he was still emotionally entangled with Camilla, who was also married to someone else. Diana cited his relationship with Camilla as a huge issue in their marriage. After Charles and Diana officially divorced in 1996, Charles and Camilla pursued their relationship in earnest (and in public), eventually marrying almost 10 years later.

On 9 Sept., 2022, following his mother Queen Elizabeth's death, Charles addressed the nation for the first time as the new monarch, and he used the opportunity to praise his wife and the support she gives him. He said in part, "This is also a time of change for my family. I count on the loving help of my darling wife, Camilla. In recognition of her own loyal public service since our marriage 17 years ago, she becomes my Queen Consort. I know she will bring to the demands of her new role the steadfast devotion to duty on which I have come to rely so much," per the Associated Press [3].

Charles and Camilla's relationship has been dramatized quite a few times, including on Netflix's "The Crown" [4] and in the 2021 Broadway musical "Diana." Their relationship has also been the subject of numerous documentaries. Ahead, here's the timeline of Charles and Camilla's relationship through the years.

1970: Charles and Camilla First Meet

The future couple first met at a polo match in 1970. Camilla had recently broken up with her previous boyfriend, Andrew Parker Bowles, and she and Charles hit it off quickly over shared interests.

Other sources suggest that Camilla met Charles a little later and flirted with him outright at the beginning. People [6] reported in 1992 that, upon their meeting, Camilla joked, "My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common." She was right on that count, at least: her great-grandmother Alice Keppel was one of the known mistresses of King Edward VII, Charles's ancestor.

Either way, the pair enjoyed a relatively low-key romance for a little while until Charles had to leave for his naval career. His absence quickly put the brakes on their fledgling romance, and he didn't propose before he left.

1973: Camilla Marries Andrew Parker Bowles

With Charles away, and without any confidence about the future of that relationship, Camilla moved on. She wound up back with her on-again, off-again ex, Andrew, and they married in 1973. They went on to have two children: Tom (who, as it happens, is Prince Charles's godson) and Laura.

1981: Charles Marries Diana Spencer

After first meeting in 1977 (while Charles was casually dating her sister, Sarah), Charles and Lady Diana Spencer tied the knot in July 1981. Televised around the world, their nuptials were a fairy-tale wedding that captured imaginations everywhere — but there were already some cracks behind the scenes.

Even before the wedding, there were a few hints that the couple weren't as perfectly suited as they tried to appear. The biggest indicator of this: the infamous 1981 TV interview [7] where, when asked if they were in love, Diana replied "Of course!" and Charles said, "Whatever 'in love' means."

1986: Charles and Camilla Resume Their Affair

Dates differ as to when, exactly, Charles started seeing Camilla again. Caroline Graham's 1995 book "Camilla and Charles: The Love Story" suggested that they rekindled their affair in 1980, when she was a shoulder to lean on following the death of his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten [8]. Charles himself, in a documentary in 1994, claimed that he and Camilla were only "very great friend[s]" until 1986, when his marriage to Diana "became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried," per The New York Times [9]. By the mid-1980s, however, pretty much everyone agrees that the Charles-Diana marriage was in tatters and that he was having an affair with Camilla.

1989: Diana Confronts Camilla

Diana often said that she had always suspected Charles and Camilla were still in love, and in Andrew Morton's headline-grabbing 1992 biography "Diana: Her True Story," she revealed that she confronted Camilla about the affair by showing up at a party in 1989 and pulling her aside.

"[Camilla] said to me, 'You've got everything you ever wanted. You've got all the men in the world fall in love with you and you've got two beautiful children, what more do you want?' . . . So I said, 'I want my husband,'" Diana revealed. "I said to Camilla, '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.'"

1992: Charles and Diana Separate

Following the release of the Morton biography, any illusions that the Wales' marriage could be saved were shattered, and by the end of the year, Charles and Diana announced their separation. What then followed were a few very awkward, tense years where they didn't move quickly toward divorce but clearly were no longer together.

It was in 1995, however, that Camilla really got brought into the mix again. Diana gave a now-famous BBC interview [10] with Martin Bashir, where she famously said, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." That same year, Camilla and her husband announced they were divorcing. Charles and Diana's divorce was finalised a year later, in 1996.

1999: Charles and Camilla Appear in Public

Soon after his divorce was finalised, Charles began slowly introducing Camilla into his life at large. Those plans were put on hold, however, after Diana's death in a car accident in 1997. By 1998, things were discreetly back on track, and a spokesperson for the prince confirmed a Guardian [11] report that Camilla had been introduced to Prince William. Prince Harry shares in his 2023 memoir, "Spare," [12] that during this time, he and William both asked their father not to marry Camilla.

In January 1999, Charles and Camilla orchestrated their first public appearance together, leaving a 50th birthday party for Camilla's sister together. Later that year, the BBC [13] reported, Camilla joined Charles and his sons on a vacation in Greece.

2003: Camilla Moves in with Charles

In 2003, the BBC [14] reported that Camilla was moving into Clarence House with Charles, where they have lived ever since. Because the relationship was still on thin ice with the public, Buckingham Palace issued a statement clarifying that, although Clarence House is a royal residence, no public funds were used for Camilla's move or for her suite, only private money.

2005: Charles and Camilla Marry

Over 30 years after they first met and fell in love, Charles and Camilla finally married in April 2005. According to the BBC [15], they held a private civil ceremony first (rather than a religious wedding, due to their well-known affairs), then had a service of blessing, presided over by the archbishop of Canterbury. Prince William was his father's best man, and although the queen and Prince Philip did not attend the civil wedding, they were there for the blessing service and the reception after.

Upon their marriage, Camilla publicly took on the title of Duchess of Cornwall, rather than the "Princess of Wales" title that she was technically entitled to, in order to avoid controversy over that title's association with Diana. At the time, Clarence House said that when Charles became king, Camilla would be known as "princess consort" instead of "queen consort." [16] However, she has been using queen consort since Charles's assension in September 2022.

2022: Charles and Camilla Become King and Queen

When Queen Elizabeth died on 8 Sept., 2022, Charles immediately became king, and Camilla became queen consort. At 73, Charles became the oldest person to ascend to the British throne. Camilla was 75.

2023: Charles and Camilla Are Officially Crowned

During a coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London on 6 May, Charles's role as monarch and head of the Church of England was formalised. Camilla was also officially crowned as queen.


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