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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that Camilla is a bit of a national treasure

385 replies

GitAwfMayLend · 29/04/2011 20:23

Yes another wedding based thread.

I think she seems a good egg. And looked lovely today.

Plus there were a few moments where she looked very emotional in the abbey, was very touching.

OP posts:
coccyx · 30/04/2011 09:35

Think she is great. Charlie should have married her from the start not attention seeking Diana.

RunAwayWife · 30/04/2011 09:37

I think they should be left alone to get on with it.
What they do has no effect on my life so why worry about it.
I do think if he had just married her in the first place a lot of pain could have been avoided, I do think Diana was put through hell and not supported, however I also think the poor girl was damaged goods to start with. William and Harry clearly love their father and accept his wife, she in turn clearly cares for them.
I think it must be very hard for her also as she knows she is always going to termed the woman who broke Diana's heart by the public, however time is a great healer, and she seems to be more and more accepted.

ragged · 30/04/2011 09:52

I don't idolise, Camilla, but I do think Camilla is Charles' one and only true love, a story for hopeless romantics everywhere. A lot of people were victims of "The Firm" in the 1970s-1980s.

She does have a loud horsey laugh, supposedly! And hates having to dress up to impress.

To become Queen I imagine Charles will have to do a ceremony to entitle Camilla as such, investiture? And he won't do that because A) obvious controversy about it and B) she doesn't want it, anyway. More credit to her for that. So technically will never be "Queen", regardless of her entitlement by marriage.

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 09:54

Lt Eve I'm guessing you were army too....I'm not necessarily talking about time scale. Andrew Parker-Bowles landed some very nice jobs and significant rank. Plenty of officers get stuck at major. It's what was said at the time as well as acknowledged that it was the 'done thing'.

It's obviously good for William and Harry that they have a decent relationship with Camilla. That doesn't mean that she and Charles who behaved with no sense of honour are due any respect. Standards have to be higher for those in the key positions or the monarchy fails. Charles and Camilla should fade off into the sunset and enjoy their twilight years but not cling onto a position that neither now deserve.

Then everyone can go up to the pub with Camilla in Tetbury and share fags and G&T's and have a right old laugh: wicked.

5DollarShake · 30/04/2011 09:56

YANBU.

Anyone who still has a grudge against Camilla after all these years and when William and Harry have so clearly well and truly welcomed her into the fold, are a bit pathetic. Get over it - you're just a random who never even knew the people involved personally.

And once and for all... Charles will not be skipped in favour of William as heir to the throne.

Primogeniture forbids this. It will be a big enough deal constitutionally if William has a first-born daughter, let alone Charles being bypassed in favour of his son.

It does not work this way - royalty and aristocracy have followed the rule of Primogeniture for centuries and centuries. The title and land are inherited by the first-born son. Not the second-born son, not the first-born daughter and not the grandson. You don't overturn these things on a whim, the whim being the some people not fancying Charles all that much. Hmm

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 10:05

slovenly I was merely pointing out the time-line and offered no opinion on the morality of Diana's affairs.

5Dollar it's not up to you to tell other people who you say are random to 'get over it'. William and Harry's relationship with Camilla is good for them and their well-being but has little to do with who should rule even as constitutional monarchs. It doesn't remove from the populace the right to object to rulers they don't respect. Check out history.

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 10:07

5Dollar so how come Mary acceded to the throne rather than her brother James? Just wondering.

dawntigga · 30/04/2011 10:12

YABU after what they have both been party to under no circumstances should either of them be considered national treasures.

ThatIsn'tToSayDianaWasInnocentEitherTiggaxx

hocuspontas · 30/04/2011 10:17

James was a Catholic.

alistron1 · 30/04/2011 10:17

Does it really matter if she's known as queen camilla. Prince Phillip doesn't seem to be too bovvered about not being King Phil.

glastocat · 30/04/2011 10:18

I'm with Custardo. Come the revolution etc etc. Anyway she's a marriage wrecker who has never done a days work in her life, I can think of better people to be a national treasure. FWIW I think Diana was a poisonous cow too, and Charles is pathetic.

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 10:20

hocus he was still the elder son.

hocuspontas · 30/04/2011 10:24

Catholicism beats primogeniture where the British monarchy is concerned thanks to James II.

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 10:37

Probably not going to pursue this one much longer but 5Dollar was giving us a constitutional lesson so I simply pointed out that it's not as set in stone as 5Dollar says: if the country turns away from a monarch or heir, whether that's because they don't fancy his religion as in James' case or for any other strongly/ widely held reason then the bloke in question may worry about whether and for how much longer he can sit tight. Charles could probably just drive off along the M4 up to Highgrove rather than escaping down the Thames in a little boat, but I'd certainly like him and the wife to give it a go.

meditrina · 30/04/2011 10:48

Catholicism is specifically excluded by law. It's not the same as just not wanting the current legitimate heir. A monarch can choose to abdicate - as Edward VIII did when he agreed his position was untenable, but there is no mechanism to force one out (unless we go back to Charles I!)

The wife of a King is automatically the Queen Consort, but she does not have to use that title. So on one level the Duchess of Cornwall will become Queen, but it is possible she will never use the title.

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 11:00

meditrina it is now but it wasn't at the time when James 11 nipped off to France, the english having made clear that they didn't want a Catholic to rule.

In the same way (though less personally extreme) Edward V111 was pushed into abdicating by Baldwin/ the public because they weren't going to tolerate Wallis as wife.

There's certainly precedent there.

TandB · 30/04/2011 12:20

James didn't abdicate though. His daughter and her husband rebelled and he finished up fleeing to France when he was losing. His unpopularity was due to his wish to give more freedom to non Anglicans after he converted to Catholicism.

There was also dispute over whether James was actually his son, although I suspect that was a handy excuse for Mary and her sister.

Jacobite ancestors here!

saffronwblue · 30/04/2011 12:26

The Chas/ Di/ Cam love triangle was very convoluted but Camilla certainly lacked integrity. It was no quick fling but literally years of hanging around someone else's unstable marriage.
She and Charles seem happy now and his sons obviously like her but I don't see her as a national treasure.

TheMotherOfAllDilemmas · 30/04/2011 12:27

I think she looked like an impostor... sorry..

But then, I was raised a republican and the fact she is married to the prince doesn't excuse:

-Playing up with a prince who loved him
-Marry another man in his absence
-Conspiring to find a younger girl who would keep the wife facade while she and her prince had an affair.
-Had a years long affair to a married man

  • Marry the prince once the girl was dead.

He might be happy, but he is also a fool, and as bad as her.
[runs for cover]

AlpinePony · 30/04/2011 13:11

I like Camilla. Sort of person who'd be bloody good fun on the hunting field! Grin

As for Diana/Camilla and first time around - hadn't Camilla blotted her copybook with pre-marital sex?

Someone mentioned Diana's mother not being around, she was ex-communicated as far as I can remember. Earl Spencer made her leave and not contact the children.

Yellowstone · 30/04/2011 13:12

kungfu I used James 11 and Edward V111 as example of monarchs pushed out by public opinion and James 111 as a son displaced in the line of succession by his sisters.

I thought the old bedpan story had lost credence: they found a very similar looking boy baby to substitute if it's true!

Jacobite here too.

Becaroooo · 30/04/2011 13:20

Diana had an affair too, you know. She wasnt perfect. No one is.

I like Camilla. She was the only one on williams side (apart from harry) who looked happy and emotional.

allgonebellyup · 30/04/2011 13:24

i personally love Camilla. And the fact she looks like my mum!

diddl · 30/04/2011 13:28

Yes, they looked a miserable lot on the whole.

Prince Andrew I thought looked as if he actually begrudged them how happy they were.

Even the Queen didn´t seem to be smiling that much.

I can´t imagine being anything less than ecstatic for the whole day if I live long enough to see a GC married, which given family history seems unlikely.

sparklypregnantmama · 30/04/2011 13:33

I met her once and she was genuinely lovely, it was at a charity event I had helped organise and she went out of her way to come over and thank us for everything we had done.