Would Charles and Diana have divorced if Camilla wasn’t in the picture?

[MamoruHisaishi]

Was it really Camilla who ruined the marriage or was it just that Diana and Charles would have ended up divorced regardless if another woman or man was in the picture?

He should never have married Diane. Just in terms of age and relationship experiences they were not suited at all.
Should have been allowed to marry Camilla in the first place.

Now, the late Queen may have had many talents, but matchmaking definitely wasn't one of them.

It was supposedly the Queen Mum and Dina's GM - who had already matched her DD also very young and marriage to Diana Dad much older and seen how bad that went - who set the match up.

I still think they'd have divorced eventually as they were both having affairs with married people.

What @90stalgia said.
I have no issue with what he said, it was when he said it that was strange.

I think Charles typically stayed friends with most of his exes. He doesn't seem to have a history of cutting people off in general. So, although he and Kanga finished, she was still a member of the society set through her husband. When she started her shop in 1983, she became a bit more obvious about her royal connection because she wanted publicity. Stories about the two of them were in the newspapers but her daughter said it was Kanga who actually leaked them.
If contact did dwindle, I should think it was Camilla that put a stop to it! Lol.

@sudeko which Annabel?

Im sorry if I got the Catholic thing wrong. He wasn’t allowed to marry Camilla perhaps she wasn’t a virgin?

Their tastes and interests were very different - it could simplistically be described as a town/country divide. Diana exaggerated her interest in country sports (hunting) during their courtship. Diana liked popular things, Charles liked classical things. On their honeymoon, she was dismayed to find Charles had packed his 'to read' pile, as that was his idea of relaxing (I'm with him there as I took a carrier bag of books on mine!).

In a non-Royal marriage that might not have been such an issue, but in a marriage where they had very little time to themselves, it didn't allow for much togetherness if they didn't enjoy doing the same things.

Now, the late Queen may have had many talents, but matchmaking definitely wasn't one of them.

That made me giggle

Yes I think they would have divorced. She was also married and that was another part of the reason they didn't get together.

You can't help who you fall in love with. I don't agree with affairs etc but I do think they absolutely belong together.

A marriage between them at that time wasn't on the cards because Camilla wasn't interested. Had they got to the stage of exploring the possibility, Camilla's past might well have counted against her in the eyes of the Queen, but it never got that far.

They were not, at that stage, the star-crossed lovers that modern interpretations of their relationship like to paint them as. Camilla had set her cap at Andrew P-B and Charles went off on a naval tour to get over the rejection; Camilla married Andrew and settled down to have a family.

I don't think it was a question of being "allowed" to marry Camilla. She was one of a number of girlfriends/mistresses around that time, and one who was much more interested in Andrew Parker-Bowles (the inspiration for Jilly Cooper's Rupert Campbell-Black). So even if he was fond of her at the time, it was going nowhere because she had a different interest back then.

Also, she isn't catholic, but Andrew P-B is.

If he hadn't been, then things could have turned out very differently - he and Princess Anne may well have married.

Who used to be with Anne Charles sister

The whole marriage was a joke and they were massively incompatible. You only had to look at them.

I never understood why people wanted them to stay together. Charles was always the villain of the piece but marriage to Diana would've been an absolute nightmare, she was a vain, self obsessed , manipulative emotional wreck.

Diana shagged around throughout and broke up marriages including Will Carling's.

I'm pleased for Charles that he found happiness with Camilla and if Diana had lived, hopefully she would've found someone suitable as well; I don't think Dodi Fayed had been going to last.

He is probably quite a dull, unimaginative pedant who couldn't judge the potential of their relationship without sleeping with her.. They hadn't slept together so they never had a sexual connection. Not did it arrive later on, once they were married.

By her own admission, she was as thick as a plank. Couple that with her mental health disorders and lack of worldliness and you’ve got a wife it would be a challenge to stay married to.

The woman Charles married had to be seen to be a virgin. That meant no past boyfriends whether they had had sex or not. Diana was mooted as Charles’ potential bride at 17. There were no rumours of any former boyfriends at this point and the family made sure it stayed that way.

Diana wasn’t thick. She regretted saying so as people took her literally. She was not an intellectual, however. She found the fact that her new husband preferred to read military history books in bed on their honeymoon disappointing…

She was an amazing pianist. There is a clip somewhere I think from the Australian tour where Charles plays the piano (badly), and then Diana is persuaded to go up and play, and puts him to shame.

Diana didn’t know how to let Charles shine. Camilla understands the game.

Charles isn't the great intellectual he likes to think he is. I mean, he's an improvement from Andrew but did not acquire an education on merit. The intellectual gap between them was big enough to make him feel good but meters rather than km.

I think Charles left Cambridge with only a 2:2. I agree he probably thinks of himself as a greater intellect than he is, but compared to Diana, he probably seemed like Aristotle.

A 2:2 back then (when around 5% got firsts and a 2:1 was what clever students aspired to) wasn't a shabby outcome

Wouldn't have mattered though because she was shagging Will Carling, and her police protection officer, and Hewitt etc

Do you think he got into Trinity on merit? The general consensus is that he was admitted because he was the heir and would have been better suited to a poly.

@ConstanceReid , a 2:2 was a perfectly respectable degree back then. A First was exceptional.

Why would he have been better suited to a Poly?
I'd have thought he was more of a university type.

Being an intellectual and being intelligent aren't the same thing. You can have intellectual interests without being startlingly intelligent. I would guess Charles has average intelligence, boosted by a thorough and rigorous education and the opportunities he has had to travel and see the world.

I made no comment on the merits of him being at Cambridge in the first place (though back then "suitability" was a factor, not just results). Gordonstoun was an alternative school back then, and I'm not sure it had particularly good O&A level results (prizing as it did all round and outdoorsy stuff, not exams)

But I stand by the point that a 2:2 was a perfectly good result at the time.

Well, better than a third and even that is technically a success. Decades later, admission tutors still make fun of the fact that he was even admitted.