Camilla Parker Bowles is now the Queen.

[PlanetNormal]

That’s Queen consort, of course, but that idea is going to take a lot of getting used to.

Yes that is a real concern.

I expect women everywhere will be emulating these behaviours as a fail-safe Prince-nabbing strategy.

after all it’s not like we have any brains or preferences of our own!

One could make an argument that having been screwed over by Charles initially Diana then embarked on a revenge fest and string of lovers.But thats water under the bridge
Marina Hyde did a very thoughtful piece today in the Guardian which is worth a read.

Actually, HRH The Duchess of Cornwall has now become HM Queen Camilla. She will be an excellent Queen Consort and a great support to HM The King.

@BrokenMatress 😂 lol.

I hope the D of E did not such thing!

She has become HM The Queen.

Camilla threads are always a bit weird. For a start, adultery is totally fucking normal when you look at the history of the monarchy. The reason there’s a Church of England that the Monarch is head of in the first place is because of adultery. Charles at least, unlike the founder who shortened two wives by a head and divorced another, remains with his second wife.

Also, Diana was the ‘OW’ multiple times. I’m not sure why Camilla is a cunt (along with every ow that ever comes up on mumsnet), but Diana apparently it fine because she couldn’t help it and can’t be held responsible for her own actions.

I am not sure that I can name anyone born into the royal family prior to 1960 who has not had an extra marital relationship/been the other person in an extra marital affair?

Edward maybe?

He was a well known philanderer
Some say until his death

I find it odd that royalists - who I assume are generally traditionalists and conservative with a small c - often refer to Camila Parker Bowles and Kate Middleton. Which as a feminist (and committed republican) who kept my maiden name when I married I fully applaud! But it’s not actually factually correct is it?

Are you serious?

It's not clear what they are though unless you want to use titles all the time. What is Kate's surname now? Windsor? Wales? Do any of them really have one? I know the children are known as George Cambridge etc at school but it is known as rather than their actual name I think.

Surely even the most ardent royalist needs a way of more quickly and easily referring to the Duchess of Cambridge than to always say the Duchess of Cambridge and Kate Middleton fits the bill. If she doesn't have an official new surname then surely she is still a Middleton anyway.

I know that… was talking about your unfortunate choice of words…

I see.

I used Topped as in Top Trumps
Should have said trumped.

It's not about adultery top trumps, it's pointing out that the very expensive PR campaign (for which Charles' publicist actually won one of the most prestigious awards in the PR world) to create and establish a 'Romeo and Juliet' narrative for Charles and Camilla, casting them as two people who were desperately in love yet cruelly prevented from being together.

There are comments all the time online along the lines of "the Queen should have let Charles marry Camilla instead of making him marry Diana" but in reality it doesn't seem like they had any interest in marrying each other back then. By all accounts Camilla was besotted with Andrew and desperate to marry him, and Charles wanted to marry an aristocratic young virgin. Camilla wasn't his only and maybe wasn't even his main mistress. He certainly had an extremely close relationship with Kanga who the media have openly referred to as his mistress for decades, and there are rumours of other women.

I actually quite like Camilla and I'm happy for them that they've made a good marriage in the end. I dislike being manipulated by PR.

But in fairness Charles wasn't much of a catch was he? Could you?

Absolutely, he was made fun of by the press and labelled a tree hugger decades before anyone else even noticed how much our planet matters

She is Queen Consort, not the sovereign. Prince Phillip was a prince in his own right. The Queen gave him the title D of E. He was Prince Consort, never King.

King Charles has been very careful to refer to Camilla as Queen Consort so that people who are ignorant of constitutional matters don't get confused. It seems he hasn't been completely successful.

He's referring to her as Queen Consort so people don't mistake him for thinking he means the Queen who has just died. Once everything is settled, she will just be called the Queen.

Actually Philip's situation was a bit odd. He was born a Prince of Greece and Denmark, but gave up those titles when he became engaged to Princess Elizabeth. Her father George VI created him HRH Duke of Edinburgh on their marriage, but somehow neglected to make him a Prince of the UK. So he wasn't technically a prince, but he was an HRH, which was an unusual situation. The Queen corrected this by making him a Prince of the UK.

This raises interesting questions about male motivation and 'trophy' partners. Charles was in the unusual position of having absolutely nothing to 'prove' - before his marriage he'd had a string of liaisons with women internationally renowned as beautiful; he'd married a woman (Diana) who was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in the world. His status meant that he'd always had his pick.

So, in that position, he went absolutely for the woman he 'clicked' with in terms of personality - Camilla. A woman who, when not being compared to Diana, was attractive enough (if she lived down your road you'd probably peg her as quite good looking for her age), but was never going to be an international beauty or fashion icon - clearly, it was their compatibility in other areas that attracted Charles.

I find that really interesting.

That was a similar one to Princess Marina. She was a Greek & Danish Princess, became Duchess of Kent and then after being widowed young was going to be HRH The Dowager Duchess of Kent.

After speaking with the Queen she was allowed to be known as HRH Princess Marina, even though she technically wasn’t that in British custom and had given up her Greek & Danish title.

The Queen later did the same for her next widowed aunt, Princess Alice, so she didn’t have to be Dowager Duchess of Gloucester. She had no previous royal titles at all.

The peculiarities are fascinating.

This.

But in fairness Charles wasn't much of a catch was he? Could you?

Diana loved him. And she did. At least twice.

Kate will also be queen consort. Only a monarch is The King or Queen. However, it is customary to refer to a queen consort as 'the Queen' once they are in post. Charles and Camilla, William and Kate (when the time comes) will be referred to as 'HM The King' and 'HM the Queen' .