TIME Europe Magazine | Fractured Fairy Tale

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After 34 years and a failed marriage for each, the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles are finally tying the royal knot. How the monarchy is remaking itself for a world that is increasingly blasé

Fractured Fairy Tale
A long and winding relationship

Bridal Power
The enigmatic woman who won't be Queen

Well Done, Ma'am Is Elizabeth II's jubilee cause to celebrate? [02/06/03]

End of an Era The Queen Mother dies. [04/08/02]

Wallis Simpson Woman of the Year [01/04/37]

To read more about the Royals from Edward and Mrs. Simpson to Charles and Camilla, visit our British Royals collection at www.time.com/royals. Subscribers get free access to the TIME Archive, from 1923 to the present.

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Fractured Fairy Tale


	A long and winding relationship

	By HUGH PORTER

Posted Sunday, Feb 13, 2005; 17.00 GMT
JUNE 1969 Charles, 20, is featured in a TIME cover story just before his investiture as Prince of Wales.

JUNE 1971 Charles meets 23-year-old Camilla Shand for the first time at a polo match in Windsor.

1972 The couple become close, but the relationship ends after Charles fails to propose and leaves for duty with the Royal Navy.

JULY 1973 Camilla marries cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles (with Charles, below at left), with whom she has had an on-off relationship.

NOV. 1977 Charles meets 16-year-old Lady Diana Spencer at a shoot on the Spencers' Althorp estate. Charles has been dating Diana's older sister Sarah.

LATE 1970s Charles and Camilla are said to rekindle their relationship.

SEPT. 1980 At Balmoral Castle in Scotland, tabloid journalists catch Charles with an unnamed girl who turns out to be Diana.

FEB. 24, 1981 Charles and Diana announce their engagement; Camilla is said to approve.

JULY 29, 1981 Charles and Diana marry in a lavish ceremony at St. Paul's Cathedral that's watched by 750 million people around the world.

1986 Rumors begin circulating that Charles and Camilla are once again lovers. Diana meets army major James Hewitt, with whom she begins a five-year affair the following year.

JANUARY 1989 Diana confronts Camilla at a dinner party and demands she end the affair with her husband.

JUNE 1992 Andrew Morton's biography, Diana: Her True Story, alleges that Camilla has been Charles' long-term mistress and that Diana, suffering from bulimia and consumed by jealousy, attempted suicide several times.

DEC. 1992 Prime Minister John Major announces the royal couple are to separate.

JAN. 1993 An Australian magazine publishes extracts from a transcript of an intimate phone conversation between Charles and Camilla.

JUNE 1994 Charles gives a TV interview in which he admits to having an affair, but only after the marriage had "irretrievably broken down."

JAN. 1995 Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles divorce.

NOV. 1995 Diana gives a candid television interview in which, among the revelations, she confirms her affair with Hewitt and says of husband's affair with Camilla, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."

AUG. 28, 1996 Charles and Diana divorce.

AUG. 31, 1997 Diana and Dodi al Fayed die in a car crash in Paris. Camilla, vilified as a marriage wrecker, retreats from public view.

JAN. 28, 1999 Camilla and Charles are officially photographed together for the first time at London's Ritz hotel.

JUNE 2000 As a sign of acceptance, the Queen attends a party also attended by Camilla.

JUNE 26, 2001 Charles and Camilla kiss in public for the first time.

JUNE 2002 Camilla sits in the royal box at the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebration.

FEB. 10, 2005 Charles' office at Clarence House announces that the couple intend to marry on April 8.

Viewpoint: Why the Royals Miss Diana [Nov. 17, 2002]
As the butler mess proves again, she was the only one who understood Britain

Canterbury Tattle-Tales [Jan. 21, 2002]
Smears tarnish the start of the race to find a new Archbishop, but at least the British are noticing

Diana, Surrogate Princess [Dec. 18, 1995]
There's always been something a little sordid about the very concept of Princess Di. It's not just that she bats her eyes at us from every tabloid, over cover lines like "The Men Who Fight to Share Her Bed," or that she's been "Dibbs" and "Squidgy" to a succession of aristocratic hunks.

Can Anyone Replace Diana? [Sep. 07, 1998]
Though the death itself may be indelible, it takes a full year even to begin to understand what has been lost and what gained — a year to pass through the seasons of grief

Restyling the Heir [July 11, 1994]
Prince Charles tries to burnish his image with a TV documentary — but his candor startles the nation

Viewpoint: Her Royal Highness, Inc. [April 23, 2001]
Once more, the Windsors suffer as monarchy and modernity clash

Butler in Right Royal Ruckus! [Nov. 10, 2002]
London tabloids go to war over revelations from Princess Diana's former servant. Who says journalism doesn't pay?

Consorting With Camilla [July 9, 1998]
Prince William meets his father's mistress

Edvardus Rex [Dec. 14, 1936]
Blasphemously in Baltimore, the home city of Mrs. Simpson, Editor H. L. Mencken last week declared that "the greatest story since the Resurrection" is the now living drama of Edward VIII.

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