Over her decades at Charles’ side, the consort has had many labels, but her easy charm, sociability and directness appear to have won over public opinion before her coronation
Before she married, the Daily Mail liked to refer to the current Princess of Wales as “Waity Katie”; William’s proposal was, it was thought, rather a long time in coming. But these things are relative, of course. In 2005, when Prince Charles announced his second engagement, he’d known Camilla Parker Bowles for more than 32 years, during which time she had played several different roles in his life: girlfriend, friend and adviser, mistress (she enlisted for the latter job twice). Thirty-two years! Imagine it. Multiply this figure by four, and you’re only just over – by 16 years, to be exact – the age of the crown Camilla will wear at the Coronation at Westminster Abbey on 6 May (Mary of Teck, the wife of George V, bought the coronet in question at the jeweller Garrard & Co in 1911).
But time, in this case, equates to words: hundreds of thousands of them. When the 26-year-old Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, people knew next to nothing about her; even had the public been less respectful then, and less religious, there was never any danger the holy solemnity of the occasion would be sullied with thoughts of her earthly existence, let alone with gossip and scandal. In the case of 75-year-old Camilla, however, the opposite is true. As she lifts the gold sceptre, will we picture her looking fraught in the car park at Sainsbury’s? As she is anointed with sacred oil, will we recall that bit in Tina Brown’s The Palace Papers where the author describes how she once French-kissed Charles in full sight of her husband, Andrew, at a polo ball? Even the glorious sound of Handel’s anthem, Zadok the Priest, may not stop us from wondering what kind of queen it is who chooses to have lunch (as she did last year) in the company of Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan.
