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It’s no secret that it took a while for members of the royal family and the public to warm up to Camilla Parker Bowles, but Queen Elizabeth’s disapproval of the woman who became her son and heir’s second wife may have been more intense than previously realized.
According to a resurfaced report from the Daily Mail (via Express UK), Prince Charles’ decision to gradually introduce Camilla into the family and to the public after halting their relationship after Princess Diana’s death didn’t sit well with his mother, who still refused to accept the future Duchess and reportedly didn’t care for her.
“The Queen had wanted her gone before Diana’s death and felt no differently after it,” Royal expert Penny Junor recalled in the original 2017 article. “Her private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes—who was also Diana’s brother-in-law—strongly reinforced her view.”
However, while the Queen didn’t care for Charles’ romance, it was actually nothing against her personally, but it was more about placing blame on someone when it came to the scandals that she and Charles had caused for his marriage.
“It was nothing personal,” Junor said. “She had been very fond of Camilla in all the years she had been married to Andrew Parker Bowles—but it was Camilla who had been responsible, wittingly or not, for all the disasters that had befallen Charles since his marriage.”
The feeling about Camilla’s part in the scandals (she and Prince Charles famously had their affair outed during his marriage to Princess Diana), reportedly extended for years, with the Queen refusing to show up at events that Camilla would be attending alongside Charles. This allegedly changed when she formally met Camilla in 2000, at the 60th birthday party for King Constantine of Greece. The event took place at Charles’ home at Highgrove, and they even sat at the same table.
The Queen’s acceptance of an invitation to the event was later seen as her deliberately accepting Camilla and paving the way for her entrance to the royal family. She went on to marry Prince Charles in 2005.
