In the upcoming biography, “The Duchess: The Untold Story,” close friends of Duchess Camilla provide new details on her longtime affair with Prince Charles, including the time she broke his heart.
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Camilla decided to marry Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973, two years after meeting and falling in love with Prince Charles because she was not deemed “sufficiently aristocratic” enough to marry the future king. When she accepted Bowles’ proposal, Charles was serving in the Caribbean for the Royal Navy.
“She wrote to Charles herself to tell him. Her letter broke the prince’s heart. In great distress, he fired off anguished letters of his own to his nearest and dearest,” an excerpt from the book reads. “It seemed to him particularly cruel, he wrote in one letter, that after ‘such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship,’ fate had decreed that it should last a mere six months.”
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Before the wedding, Charles reportedly did what he could to stop the nuptials by writing her a letter back, but he was unsuccessful in persuading her. However, the two remained “best friends” until they once again became lovers following the birth of Camilla’s daughter, Laura, years later.
“Andrew was in no position to complain; and when he discovered what was going on, he wisely didn’t make a fuss,” the excerpt continues, adding that he had been unfaithful. “Some would say that a part of him actually quite enjoyed the fact that his wife was sleeping with the future King; he might have felt differently had Charles been a traveling salesman.”
Prince Charles went on to marry Princess Diana, but the two got divorced in 1996, and Diana tragically passed away in 1997. Charles then married Camilla in 2005.