Wedding Bell News
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
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MIXED MESSAGES: The public and media response to the announcement of Charles and Camilla's marriage ranged from indifference to enthusiasm to outrage.
Posted Sunday, Feb 13, 2005;
17.00 GMT
To Charles, the idea of just continuing to live in sin with Mrs. Parker Bowles was excruciating. He calls her "the one non-negotiable fact" in his life. As the world heard to its amazement in the 1993 "Camillagate" tapes — recordings of late-night cell-phone intimacies in which he compared himself to a tampon — they have had a passionate affair. But more crucially, he clearly loves and relies on her, finding in her what his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby calls "the warmth, the understanding and the steadiness for which he had always longed and had never been able to find with any other person."
Yet because the rules of protocol have not caught up with cohabitation, their mutual longing has often been thwarted. Last November Charles boycotted the wedding of his own godson when Camilla was assigned a seat several rows behind him. At a recent semi-official dinner the two attended, one of the organizers received stern instructions from palace aides that though Charles and Camilla would arrive together, they should never be together. At the reception, she went clockwise, he went counterclockwise around the room, having to ignore each other as if they were strangers. "People don't realize that while you and I can go to a dinner party with our girlfriend, this guy can't," says Brooks-Baker. "The royals can get drunk, take narcotics, stand on their heads, but something as simple as this can't be accomplished with any amount of dignity."
Camilla has been living with Charles for years, but her public exposure has come in tiny doses skilfully measured out by Charles' advisors. There was a brief public appearance together in 1999; she accompanied Charles on some semi-official engagements in 2000; there were reports of a 10-minute encounter with the Queen at a barbecue that summer. The first public kiss came in 2001, followed by an invitation to the Queen Mother's funeral in 2002 (though Camilla didn't sit with the royals) and reports of a private audience with the Queen, without pictures. Soon after, she sat behind the Queen at a public celebration. Camilla has the discipline never to say anything controversial in public, except for the tiny infraction of displaying a bumper sticker in favor of fox hunting — a view shared by virtually every member of her horsey set as well as Charles — last year when the government was preparing to ban the practice.
One crucial ingredient in her rehabilitation has been her acceptance by Princes William and Harry. Stories about their deepening relationship have been carefully dribbled out for years. Now, palace aides say, the boys like her and recognize her importance in their father's life — and because they are nearly grown anyway, the sensitivities are less. They issued a statement last week saying, "We are both very happy for our father and Camilla and we wish them all the luck in the future."
So what finally pushed Charles to take the plunge he has been aching to take since Diana's death? "The stars aligned; the time was right," says one of his aides. "There was no trigger, no event that meant we had to move now." The opinion polls seemed to have stabilized in support of marriage. "Our feeling all along was that a majority of people would feel happy that two people in love are getting married." Charles didn't want to leave it too late. If his 78-year-old mother died, he knew his accession would be overwhelmed by questions about his girlfriend. As Lacey observes, "The popularity of the monarchy does not float on uncertainty."
Last week the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons started poking around in Charles' finances, and appears ready to investigate next how much he spends on Camilla. The iniquiry isn't expected to amount to much, but with the tabloids now permanently gunning for Harry after he shoved a photographer outside a nightclub and wore a Nazi armband to a costume party, Charles couldn't count on ever finding a perfect moment. "He wants to get on with it before it gets to be more trouble," says Sarah Bradford, another biographer of the Queen. Over Christmas, Charles talked the idea over with Camilla and the boys, found a date everyone could make, and then started jumping the necessary hurdles.
By law his mother had to approve. In the past, she has not thought much of Camilla, "but she has reconciled herself," says Bradford. "She disapproves of divorce as a Christian, though it has happened to three of her children. Then again, she is very pragmatic, and Camilla wasn't going to go away. She would rather fall in with Charles' plans and do it as well as they can rather than leaving it." Prince Philip also wants his son to have the stability Camilla provides.
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