King Charles’ ‘painstaking’ secret plan for Queen Camilla marriage

King Charles and Queen Camilla may seem the picture of wedded bliss today, but there was reportedly a lot of pressure on their complex love story.

Catherine Mayer, author of Divide & Rule, revealed the monarch’s friends told her that then-Prince Charles went to “painstaking” efforts to solidify Camilla’s place in his life, starting with her royal image.

After Charles’ marriage with Princess Diana ended in 1996, amid her public confession about his affair with Camilla, the royal quietly worked on gaining public acceptance of their romance. 

“I think the non-negotiability was the point after the divorce and, of course, after Diana’s death,” Mayer said in an interview with Fox News Digital. “He understood that this was the one woman who could really sustain him. And I think he felt the need for that kind of support, and Camilla has clearly always been prepared to do that.”

Why their first royal romance wasn’t meant to be

Charles and Camilla had met through mutual friend Lucia Santa Cruz in 1970, but their relationship fizzled out after he was deployed overseas for eight months aboard HMS Minerva.

Mayer also told People that Camilla wasn’t deemed the right fit for the royal family at the time, stating the perception behind palace walls was that she was “the kind of woman you go off and have fun with, but not the kind you marry.” 

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Instead, she went on to marry Andrew Parker-Bowles in 1973, and Charles married Princess Diana eight years later. 

Diana reportedly recognised the importance Charles placed on his friendship after discovering cufflinks engraved with two intertwined C’s, and their pet names for each other. 

“There were three people in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Diana famously said in her 1995 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir, referring to Camilla.

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Following Prince William and Prince Harry‘s parents’ split, which made Charles the first heir apparent to get divorced, and Diana’s death in 1997, Charles and Camilla sought professional help to gain support for their relationship before they announced their engagement in 2005.

Mayer said their romance was “one of the most unlikely love stories you can imagine,” but added that behind closed doors, it was evident that Camilla had a “magical effect” on Charles.

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They hired PR executive Mark Bolland to orchestrate a long-term media campaign to shift public perception from “the other woman” to a potential future Queen. Prince Harry commented on how Camilla played the “long game” in Spare, describing it as “a campaign aimed at marriage, and eventually the Crown, with Pa’s blessing we presumed.”

However, he criticised her methods to get there, stating he had been “sacrificed… on her personal PR altar.”

In a follow-up interview with Michael Strahan on Good Morning America, he explained: “I have a huge amount of compassion for her, you know, being the third person within my parents’ marriage… She had a reputation, or an image, to rehabilitate, and whatever conversations, whatever deals or trading was made right at the beginning, she was led to believe that that would be the best way of doing it.”

He added: “I see someone who married into this institution and has done everything that she can to improve her own reputation and her own image for her own sake.”