Queen Consort Camilla 'Wasn't Aristocratic Enough' Junor also said that the royal family – in particular, Charles' great-uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten – didn't think she was "aristocratic" enough to be a princess.
Answer: The big reason Prince Charles and Camilla Shand, as she was then known, didn't get married in the early 1970s: He never asked her. And there are probably a number of reasons for that. In his early 20s, like many other young men, Charles simply wasn't ready for marriage.
According to several royal biographers and also The Crown, Charles wanted to marry Camilla but was steered away from her by the royal family, who didn't think she'd be a suitable wife largely thanks to the fact that she had a few ex-boyfriends and therefore was probably not a virgin.
The British government released a statement declaring Charles could legally enter into a civil marriage. The view was the Marriage Act 1949 had repealed the previous legislation. The government also argued there was a right to marry under the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Camilla wasn't considered a suitable match for the Prince of Wales. Prince Charles and Camilla at a polo match in 1975. Even if Charles had wanted to settle down, he would have encountered those with serious doubts about whether Camilla was an appropriate bride for the heir to the throne.
In the words of Camilla's former brother-in-law, Richard Parker Bowles, “[Camilla] initially encouraged the relationship between Charles and Diana because she thought Diana was gormless… Camilla knew that as a woman with a past she could never be accepted as Charles' wife.
Camilla may have been at Diana's wedding but she was not welcome at her funeral, which was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people around the world. Still, to many her absence echoed around the ancient hall. The Queen made it clear to Charles that he could not take his paramour to the service.
Prince Charles realized in December 1972 that Camilla Parker Bowles was his soulmate and that he wanted to marry her—but did nothing about it.
According to the BBC, it was the Queen's stamp of approval. Five years later, Charles and Camilla were engaged after the Queen gave them her blessing. However, Queen Elizabeth didn't attend the legal ceremony, but she did make an appearance at a secondary blessing, which she hosted at St. George's Chapel.
Now she could act to end Camilla's long wait. During an audience with Charles at Sandringham on Christmas 2004, the queen gave permission for them to marry. It was almost the end of a long, uncertain march, with the prospect of a happy future for the couple now beckoning.
In his new memoir Spare, Prince Harry reportedly says he and Prince William asked their father King Charles not to marry Queen Camilla following the death of their mother Princess Diana.
As Charles would become Defender of the Faith when he took the throne, marrying a divorcée was tricky. And Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II, disapproved of Camilla's behavior, at one point reportedly calling her "that wicked woman." In addition, the Queen Mother, Charles' grandmother, detested Camilla.
Camilla Is Related to Both Diana and King Charles
Strangely, they are also both related to the late Princess Diana through shared ancestry dating back to King Charles II. Also note that Camilla's great-grandmother was a mistress to King Edward VII, the great-great-grandfather of King Charles.
Before King Charles III (then Prince Charles) married Princess Diana (then Diana Spencer) in 1981, he was apparently already smitten with his former girlfriend, Camilla Parker Bowles (then Camilla Shand, now Camilla, Queen Consort). After an extensive courtship, Charles and Camilla married each other in April 2005.
"In 1998, when Charles was trying to persuade his mother to be more accommodating of Camilla, the Queen described her as 'that wicked woman,'" Lacey said. "Those damning words were reported in distress by Prince Charles himself."
The reigning monarch's wife is traditionally known as the Queen Consort, while the Queen (technically the “Queen Regnant”) refers to a woman who has ascended the throne through the pre-established familial line of succession and has sovereign power.
Will Camilla be queen if King Charles dies? If Charles, 74, dies before Camilla, she will have the name of “queen dowager” bestowed upon her, according to reports. As Camilla is excluded from the Windsor bloodline, she would not be the sole queen in the event that Charles passes away before she does.
Katie Couric has revealed why she broke down in tears while covering Princess Diana\x27s funeral. Couric was struck by an envelope with \\\x22Mummy\\\x22 ... Yes, Prince Harry and Prince William both cried at their mother, Princess Diana\x27s, funeral.
A year after Diana's death in 1997, Charles and Camilla made their relationship public and eventually got married in 2005. On September 8, 2022, following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Charles officially became King Charles III; Camilla will now be known as the Queen Consort.
“[Charles, Earl Spencer], Diana's brother … has also said that he felt that he was tricked into doing it and regrets it. “He said it was like walking through a tunnel of grief.”
"One of the most shocking things that Diana told me was that the night before the wedding, Charles told her that he didn't love her," Thornton said. "I think Charles didn't want to go into the wedding on a false premise. He wanted to square it with her, and it was devastating for Diana."
Yet the late Princess is said to have never fully reconciled with Camilla, who was criticised by the press and Diana's supporters – especially when the beloved royal was tragically killed in the famous 1997 car accident.
Diana and Camilla might have never had a close friendship, but when Charles and Diana started dating the pair were friendly with each other. At the time Camilla was married to Andrew Parker Bowles and had two children with him.
At one point, Charles told Camilla that he would like to live in her trousers. When she asked if he was going to be reincarnated as a pair of knickers, he joked that it would be his luck to come back as a tampon. Unsurprisingly, this portion of the conversation is what dominated tabloid headlines.
"When the question came, Willy and I promised our father that we would welcome Camilla to the family," Harry writes in Spare, according to reports from Sky News. "The only thing we asked for in return was that he didn't marry her. 'You don't need to get married again,' we asked him."