To have warmed to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

[octonaught]

I am old enough to remember the Diana years really clearly, including Charles & Diana’s wedding.
At the time I thought Camilla was awful “there were 3 of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” said Diana, the media minx.
All 3 players, Diana, Charles & Camilla were victims of the protocols of the time, ie the future Queen needed to basically be a Virgin, & Charles & Diana basically had an arranged marriage, which just didn’t work out, but due to their position they weren’t allowed to quietly go their separate ways.
Charles & Camilla have —officially— been together over 20 years. Camilla has kept her head down & they look like a very happy couple.

I don’t know about the political ramifications of Camilla being queen or not. But as a person, she seems ok.

Its highly unlikely the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time will turn round and say 'excuse me King Charles, but you are not married to this woman you have claimed is your wife for over 20 years

I agree; after all the Archbishop's part of the establishment himself and hardy likely to risk his position by making waves

However I was thinking more of (possibly republican) legal experts who might want to stir the pot by revisiting the claims they've made before. It probably wouldn't make any difference of course, but it would hardly be a dignified start to a reign

Diana was no vulnerable victim, but it suited her to be seen as a poor vulnerable little girl so she could manipulate the media and the public.

Let’s not forget that the paternity of Harry has been openly questioned for decades, and even though it would seem that he is Charles’s, the fact that it was questioned at all is clear evidence of the fact that she was shagging around pretty much as soon as they were married as well...

Oh and OW after she got divorced - Will carling anyone?

Personally I have no idea why people care so much about what other people do in their marriages. So they had affairs. Meh, lots of people do. Neither Charles or Diana were innocent in that regard so there is no blaming one more than the other imho.

And if Diana had come on here after starting her affair with Will Carling she would have been torn to shreads for being an Ow.

Diana was calculating, manipulative and attention seeking. She knew how to play the victim and play the media. I like Camilla and I think her and Charles make a perfect couple. You can see a genuine warmth between them.

I really like her.
From images in the press/ from TV it would appear the Prince William and Harry seem to like her also. I think that's very telling too.

I love how people write as if they know her!

puzzled any Act of Parliament can be repealed or amended at any time by Parliament. If there was any kind of problem, all that would have had to happen is that Parliament would have passed an amendment or repealed the whole thing and passed a new law. It would be such an easy problem to solve, if there was one, its ridiculous to think no one though about what would happen when the person who has been heir to the throne for 65 years married for the second time.

Don’t have ill will toward her but I will never warm to her. I too remember the early years. Diana was 19 and in love. She was excluded and isolated by pretty much everyone, by very powerful people. Considering how she was treated I think she handled it better than any of us would have. Charles is a selfish person. He was much older than Diana, he wasn’t manipulated into anything. He chose to do what he did, all along.

Diana was only 36 when she died. Diana’s sons, if they could have chosen, would have chosen to still have their mother and they probably would have her today if Charles had treated her with respect. Instead they did their best to make her feel she didn’t belong.

Camilla got what she wanted, in the end. I will never warm to her.

I don't have that much interest in the royals but Camilla seems fro fit the bill and I'm pleased that people are warming to her

I never understood the deification of Diana, and as for people posting that they are "team Diana", well, words fail me

I hope Camilla becomes Queen.

Diana met Charles about 4 times before she agreed to marry him. She may have been in love with the idea of being a princess but I doubt she was in love with a man who quite clearly wasn't in love with her and couldn't even fake being in love with her during an interview about their engagement!

I wonder how this will play out on Relationships.
OW is such a lovely, mature and pleasant person. So what if she and the man hurt a teenager girl who was having babies with the man who was supposed to be her lover and husband. We are so obsessed and biased with the monarchy and class in this country that it becomes double standards immediately.
Just these last 24 hours, two threads were going crazy over how a girl must challenge a DP going to see his long-term "friend" one last time and how another poster's friend is not a friend but a whore who is breaking a family by knowing shagging a married man.
Mumsnet has such double standards sometimes. I agree with majority of the posters on threads by the way.

I've read somewhere that the children of the son's of the monarch are entitled to be Princess, the Wessex children could have been but their parents decided against it. So if Harry and Megan have children while the Queen lives then they don't qualify, not the children of the Sovereign's son, if Charles were King then they would be Prince and Princess. The rules have changed a lot though, there maybe something now about only the children of the eldest son, ie William if Charles were King.
As far as the C, C and D situation, it was a disaster from the start but one person who should bear a lot of the blame, were he still alive, would be her father, the late Earl Spencer was desperate to put a Spencer on the throne, he'd tried Sarah but she had 'a past' hence he and her Grandmother Lady Fermoy pushed Diana into the picture. She had grown up around the Royals, I doubt she was as ignorant of Court life as has been suggested, she wanted to be P of W at all costs. I really like Camilla, apart from anything else she was the one out of the three of them who behaved with dignity, no trashy books ir TV interviews.

For all those slating Diana saying she had affairs as well, i doubt those affairs would ever have happened if her husband had been faithful to her in the first place. As for William and Harry having a close relationship with Charles and Camilla I don’t think this is true, William is basically a Middleton now and it was not long ago Charles expressed his sadness and not having much contact with his grandchildren.

Charles was utterly spineless and just went with the flow and had no concern for the fallout of his actions. Diana did manipulate the press but she was treated like utter utter shit and had no voice. For him to marry her when she was only eighteen but emotionally so much younger when he was what? 32? Crazy. They had only met thirteen times. A recipe for disaster. Charles was sensible enough to realise it was never going to work but Diana was taken in my the machine and fine words. Camilla may well be fundamentally decent but she knew exactly what results her actions had on Diana as did Charles and I think the pair of them are disgusting individuals for what they did back then. Everyone was in a terrible position but nothing was done properly or with dignity. Had Diana been allowed to grow up and mature away from the press and then met someone that genuinely loved her, I am sure she would have been fine but with her childhood and then with how she was treated, no wonder she displayed the behaviour she did. I think she was restrained TBH, she knew exactly what had been going on, even on her wedding day. To be put in a position where she was just 'hoping for the best' on her wedding day is shocking. She was stepping into the abyss poor cow.

Agree with this. Diana was what, 19 or 20 when she got married? Still so young, so naive and innocent in terms of relationships (let's face it,she hadn't really had one as that's why she was chosen!)
No wonder she felt so messed up towards the end. If Charles was carrying on behind her back with Camilla, that must have been awful,especially if she knew that's who he really wanted to be with.
He,and she (Camilla) are vile for treating her like shit if so.
I don't care if she "looks like she'd be fun" like some posters have said.
They're foul.

Camilla got what she wanted, in the end. I will never warm to her.

Same.

I'm a republican with little interest in what the royal family do, but a friend of my parents is a probably-not-very-close-friend of Prince Charles. He says that Camilla is lovely and they're really, really happy together, which is nice, even if you think the whole bloody royal circus should end.

But the thing is, Charles was more or less ordered to marry a young fertile virgin, to give him an heir and a spare, and Camilla didn't fit that profile.... so Diana it was! However, he knew Camilla before Diana, and he never stopped loving Camilla.He never really loved Diana, and it was a shame. He loved Camilla. All along he loved her.....

So that makes it all OK, then? He had no choice, it's all a romantic love story between Charles and Camilla together from the start and pesky Diana got in the way and he "had" to marry her?!
Doesn't make it any better, or romanticise it.
He married someone, then had an affair with someone else.Can you imagine Diana on AIBU? She so would not have been.

I'm not sure it was that Charles was not allowed to marry Camilla. He went off somewhere and when he came back she had married herself. I don't think he was prevented, he just didn't act quickly enough. God knows what her husband thought of her having an affair with Charles throughout their marriage . The whole bloody thing was an absolute mess. I'm sure she is a perfectly nice woman, and they seem very happy, but I think she should have left Charles alone once he married, for Diana's sake. The fact that she didn't is disgusting, so I will never like her much.

I don't think Charles will be king. Assuming he outlives the Queen, I have a feeling the crown will pass to William. We've had decades of an aged monarch, I don't want another old couple as King and Queen consort. Especially not that pair.

I dislike Camilla. As well as committing adultery with the husband of a vulnerable young woman she was said to be "utterly ruthless" towards wild animals when hunting. Which makes her utterly despicable.

I like Camilla but don't think she should become a Queen, if the opportunity arises.

I would hope she'd decline and maintain her integrity, which she has done so impeccably so far, it can't have been easy.

There’s a vast difference between a woman who goes on to relationships at the time though and one from 35 years ago. There comes a point where everyone must move on, and the notion that William and Harry don’t have a good relationship with her or only do because their mother is dead is clearly just wishful thinking on posters’ part.

Also, there are plenty of posts on mn from posters who were the children of cheating partners who would say that their parent left for OW/OM and that actually their parents should never have married in the first place.

As for Diana only having affairs because he did, two wrongs don’t make a right. Lots of people have affairs for lots of reasons, these things are very rarely black and white. If she had reasons for having affairs he likely did as well. And when she was sleeping with Will Carling having been through knowing what it was like to be cheated on apparently she did so in the knowledge of and happy to cause the hurt that she did to another woman. Yeah, innocent naive my arse, but it was all years and years and years ago. Really, these things happen. At the time they hurt but they happen. 30 years on if the children have moved on then really, plebs on the internet who have no real idea about any real detail of these people’s lives which hasn’t been given by the media can’t really have an informed opinion.

don't think Charles will be king. Assuming he outlives the Queen, I have a feeling the crown will pass to William. We've had decades of an aged monarch, I don't want another old couple as King and Queen consort. Especially not that pair.

That’s just not how monarchy works. You don’t get to pick the next one as part of a popularity contest, you get the next in line regardless of how crazy/old/right wing/adulterous/ill/interested they are. The second the queen breathes her last, Charles is king.

I’m a Republican and whilst I would agree the Queen has been a ‘good’ monarch (at least in terms of stability, neutrality, longevity) you can’t predict what you will end up with.

Charles will become king, unless he predeceases his mother.

If he does not, but is too infirm to either be able or to want to reign, he will still become king, but a Regent will be installed to reign. In theory that could be anyone suitable (eg the next in his own generation) but in practice it's unthinkable that it would be anyone other than Prince William.

"it's all a romantic love story between Charles and Camilla together from the start"

That's simply not true, as she was not the only mistress at that point. The suggestion that she was omnipresent is a bit of a myth.

I don’t think Camilla wanted to marry Charlie when they finally did, I think she liked having her cake and eating too, and liked doing her own thing, as she still does. Charlie must be a bloody nightmare to live with, a typical upper class twit, so she has her own house to get away from him.
I can’t warm to her either. She and Charlie behaved very badly and Diana, while no saint, was vulnerable and very young when she married him. I think a lot of women could identify with Diana, I know I did, with regards to unfaithful men and older, other women.
I remember seeing pictures of Diana with Camilla and it was clear that Camilla was sussing her out, to see if she could carry on with Charlie. The whole thing is like a Greek tragedy.

As an adult with a daughter the same age as Diana was I feel incredibly sorry for the young Diana, she must have known virtually nothing of adult life and a 32 year old man must have seemed very attractive to her. Throw in her dysfunctional childhood and him being Prince of Wales and what hope did she have? I expect most MNetters know people who married at 19 and whose relationships didn’t last, add in a much older man and how can anyone be surprised that the marriage broke down. Camilla seems quite sensible but I haven’t met her and it’s much easier to present an image when you are post-childbearing age and have access to vast amounts of money. I hope that she and her children are happy.