How an intervention from the Queen convinced Charles to marry the love of his life Camilla
IT WAS an intervention by his mother that finally convinced Prince Charles it was time to take the biggest gamble of his life.
In January 2005, he and Camilla Parker Bowles were due at the funeral of Sir Angus Ogilvy, husband of Princess Alexandra of Kent.
The Queen was concerned that pictures of her eldest son next to the woman Princess Diana called “The Rottweiler” would be unacceptable to the public.
So instead of sitting together as they had planned, Charles and Camilla were told to attend the ceremony apart.
They dutifully obeyed but one courtier said the Prince of Wales was “incandescent with rage”.
And it prompted a man often unfairly seen as weak compared with his over-bearing father to stand up to his parents.
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He was furious that the woman he had loved since 1970, who had been openly with him for years, was still out in the cold.
Less than four months later, Charles and Camilla stepped out of Windsor Guildhall as husband and wife.
The register office ceremony was low key, and the Queen declined to attend.
But Charles had got his way and, to the Queen’s great relief, the public loved it.
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In the nervous months that followed, it looked as though the impossible had happened. The Duchess of Cornwall was accepted as the family’s newest recruit.
On the day of the wedding I watched the couple emerge into Windsor High Street. From the balcony of the Castle Hotel, I could feel the mood of thousands crammed on to the pavements below.
There were no boos or shouts from the Diana faithful. There was excitement. People cheered and waved flags.
The newlyweds beamed as they headed off to start the life they had dreamed of for years — and I was struck by how different it could all have been.
If Charles had misread the mood, if his gamble had not paid off, his chances of being King could have vanished live on TV.
So how did he turn the woman he now has at his side from Public Enemy No 1 into a consort admired by millions?
It was not an accident. The Windsor wedding was the culmination of one of the most successful PR campaigns of Elizabeth II’s long reign.
It had begun in earnest seven years earlier, in the dark days and weeks after Princess Diana’s death.
The backlash against Camilla was devastating. Life as a royal had been unbearable for Diana. Charles was the uncaring husband, Camilla the calculating mistress.
There was a sense that their enduring extra-marital relationship was in some way to blame for the tragedy.
Charles did not appear in public for two weeks after Diana’s funeral.
He looked nervous on his first official engagement, to Manchester, but the large crowds held no blame for him or Camilla. One woman took his hand and told him: “Keep your chin up.”
Charles replied: “That’s very kind of you but I feel like crying.”
At the time, Charles and Camilla’s relationship was stronger than ever. Yet now marriage was unthinkable, let alone the prospect that Camilla Parker Bowles could one day be Queen.
Divorce, then death, had stolen that prize from Diana.
If there was to be any chance of future happiness, Charles knew something had to be done.
Exactly a year before Diana’s death, Charles and Camilla had launched what would become known in Palace circles as “Operation PB”.
At the time Camilla was being demonised by public and Press, and the royals were urging Charles to “cut her loose”.
In August 1996 Camilla met Mark Bolland, the well-connected director of the Press Complaints Commission, who recalled: “She was, frankly, a wreck and under immense strain.”
Within weeks, Bolland was working for Charles as his assistant private secretary.
Part of the job was to mastermind a campaign to improve Camilla’s image, and Charles regarded his dealings with the Press as a “necessary evil”.
There was much work to do. In a poll of 2.6million viewers during a live debate, a third voted for an end to the monarchy.
Many in the audience booed at any mention of Camilla’s name.
Around her 50th birthday in July 1997, Bolland planned a publicity roll-out including a party at the Prince’s Highgrove home, where he and Camilla were “openly intimate”.
A fortnight later the couple met PM Tony Blair’s closest ally Peter Mandelson, where Charles revealed how they “wanted a more normal life”.
Spin king Mandelson did not hold back and told the Prince how the public “had the impression that you feel sorry for yourself and you’re glum”.
Bolland later wrote that Mandelson’s guidance on how to win back the British people had “helped him form a plan” that would eventually lead to the couple’s wedding day. But Diana’s tragic death almost killed off Operation PB.
Charles’s priority was to protect Camilla. As a non-royal she was not entitled to her own taxpayer-funded security detail, despite the fact her association with the family put her at great personal risk.
Prince Charles secretly paid for his lover to have her own bodyguard.
Next, staff at Clarence House had to buy the couple time. It was agreed that the publication of pictures of them together would be out of the question while the backlash continued.
Stories spread about how Camilla was smuggled into the Prince of Wales’s Highgrove estate hidden under a blanket on the back seat of a car, such were the lengths they went to in order to avoid stoking the public’s anger.
It would be nine months after Diana’s death before Camilla was introduced to Prince William, just days before his 16th birthday.
Before Diana’s death, it had been obvious that Diana’s children had no interest in meeting their father’s lover.
But in June 1998, William was finally ready to meet Camilla, who was so anxious to make a good impression that she “trembled like a leaf”.
The 30-minute meeting at York House went well but moments after leaving the room Camilla gasped: “I really need a gin and tonic!” They met twice more before Harry joined their get-togethers.
If the boys would accept Camilla, despite everything that had happened, the public would surely follow suit.
Privately, Charles was growing increasingly impatient to move ahead with Operation PB. It was not long before a plan was being put in place to finally let the worst-kept royal secret out of the bag.
Just before midnight on January 28, 1999, the Prince of Wales and his long-term love stepped out in public for the first time as a couple.
They were photographed outside London’s Ritz Hotel as they left a 50th birthday party for Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot.
A wall of Press and magazine photographers waited outside in what has now become one of the most memorable photocalls in modern royal history.
The coverage sparked criticism from the Diana faithful, with some commentators describing it as an insult to the late Princess.
But by the time Charles brought in Manchester United’s former head of communications, Paddy Harverson, in 2003, a new confidence had grown at Clarence House.
It seemed icy feelings towards Camilla had started to thaw. The most important plank of Project PB rested on Princes William and Harry.
If the boys would accept Camilla, despite everything that had happened, the public would surely follow suit.
And Charles’s enduring love for his sons, laid bare as he walked with them behind Diana’s coffin, had already tempered some of the public anger directed at him.
The obvious warmth between Charles and his younger son was also clearly on show when he took Harry with him on an official visit to southern Africa two months after Diana’s death.
Their tour included a photo opportunity with the Spice Girls in Johannesburg, and pictures of 13-year-old Harry and his father meeting the pop group appeared in papers and magazines around the world.
They conveyed the message that Diana’s heartbroken son had found some comfort in the strong bond with his down-to-earth father.
In the years since Diana’s death, the Palace spin doctors have provided dozens of opportunities for the media and public to see Charles playing the fatherly role.
Pictures of the future King with his sons at his side were drip-fed by the Palace for a number of years: Charles watching his sons pass out of Sandhurst, William graduating from university, or the three of them enjoying the traditional Easter ski trip to Klosters in Switzerland — the list goes on and on.
When Harry began to struggle with his public role, the Palace was quick to insist his father was still in control.
In 2001 when the News of the World revealed Harry had experimented with cannabis, Charles insisted his son meet victims of addiction behind the scenes.
And when The Sun broke the story of Harry dressed as a Nazi at a fancy dress party, the Palace claimed Charles wanted his son to visit the Auschwitz death camp to learn about the Holocaust.
Time and again the message being portrayed by Charles’s media team was one of a strong, loving father, listened to and respected by his supportive sons.
Few would argue that Charles will now be a greater king for having Camilla at his side.
Less than a month before Camilla was due to walk down the aisle, Clarence House tried one more big push.
A photocall was arranged during the annual ski trip in Klosters to show Charles flanked by both William and Harry enjoying a holiday as a family.
The idea was to show the public that the sons had given their father the seal of approval for his wedding.
As it turned out, the coverage was dominated by comments Charles uttered under his breath, abusing BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell.
Microphones picked up Prince Charles saying: “I hate doing this. Bloody people. I can’t stand that man anyway. He’s so awful, he really is. I hate these people.”
None of it mattered. The message from the boys was clear: “Our father has our blessing”.
A relationship that had lasted on and off for more than 35 years was made official by their marriage in April 2005.
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The images of William and Harry beaming with delight as they followed the happy couple out of the Guildhall sent a signal to the Diana obsessives. And since then, Camilla has become an experienced senior member of The Firm.
Their enduring marriage is proof the public’s opinions of people can change. Few would argue that Charles will now be a greater king for having Camilla at his side.