On top of being a devoted wife, mother, grandmother and step-grandmother, Queen Consort Camilla also contributes a lot to charity. Since marrying Charles in 2005, she has become patron or president of more than 90 charities.
According to several royal biographers and also The Crown, Charles wanted to marry Camilla but was steered away from her by the royal family, who didn't think she'd be a suitable wife largely thanks to the fact that she had a few ex-boyfriends and therefore was probably not a virgin.
However, the royal family wasn't interested in having Camilla as its princess. For one thing, she was perceived as an “experienced” woman, which was a nonstarter for the royal family back then in terms of a suitable spouse for Prince Charles.
As NBC royal commentator Daisy McAndrew puts it, a “queen consort is a woman who married a man who is king,” and a “queen is a woman who is born to be queen and is head of state — not the wife of a monarch.”
Change of the wedding location and date
On 22 February, Buckingham Palace announced that the Queen would not attend the wedding ceremony, but would attend the church blessing and host the reception afterwards. The reason stated by the palace was the couple wanted to keep the occasion low key.
Camilla announced last Sunday she would not be attending the ceremony after representatives of Clarence House, Prince Charles' London household, had initially assured the public and the press she would accompany her husband.
However, Princess Diana said that Camilla did not wear white, noting instead that the future queen consort donned a light gray for the occasion. "I knew she was in there, of course.
King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla spend time apart, even though they share the same throne. According to sources close to the royal couple, the two do not sleep together.
A royal source told CNN last month that the coronation was an appropriate time to start the transition of titles. “It made sense to refer to Her Majesty as the Queen Consort in the early months of His Majesty's reign, to distinguish from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” the source added.
No, a queen consort cannot become a queen. This is because while a queen consort title is acquired through marriage, the title and role of a reigning monarch can only be inherited. Typically this occurs when a sovereign abdicates the throne or passes away, as Queen Elizabeth did.
Camilla Is Related to Both Diana and King Charles
Strangely, they are also both related to the late Princess Diana through shared ancestry dating back to King Charles II. Also note that Camilla's great-grandmother was a mistress to King Edward VII, the great-great-grandfather of King Charles.
Princess Kate made her way through the ranks of the royal family, quickly transforming from a commoner into the future queen consort of England. The Duchess of Cambridge met her future husband, Prince William, in college, and the couple tied the knot in 2011 after nearly a decade together.
So, the bottom line? Yes, Prince Harry could one day be King... but there'd need to be a lot of unfortunate and premature deaths in order for that to happen. And even if it did happen, there's no certainty that the present Duke of Sussex would actually want to take on the role (he could very well choose to abdicate).
King Charles III and his beloved Camilla, Queen Consort, have spent decades falling in love with each other — but their romantic journey hasn't been an easy one.
But did you know that Camilla actually has royal blood herself? Her royal ancestry is distant, but there's a definite linkage that's worth mentioning. The Earl of Albermarle, Camilla's 2x great-grandfather. The link comes from Camilla's 2x maternal great-grandfather Lieutenant Colonel William Coutts Keppel, born 1832.
Charles has been king since the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September. While his wife, Camilla, was also crowned at the coronation, because she is not a member of the royal family by blood, she would not take over the throne if Charles were to die or step down.
“The reason that a male consort is a 'Prince Consort' and not 'King Consort' is due to the development of the English language: 'Queen' originally did not mean 'a female King' but actually 'the wife of a King', which puts her deliberately lower than him in the language (and therefore social) hierarchy.
When Prince Philip married Queen Elizabeth II in 1947, he was given the titles of Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich. Unlike Camilla, he was not crowned at his spouse's 1953 coronation. Instead, he was officially made Prince by Queen Elizabeth as declared in a new letters patent, in 1957.
He told me he was terrified the first night he stayed in Kensington Palace, relieved at least that Charles and Diana had separate bedrooms. Apparently, she had 30 childhood cuddly toys lining the end of her bed."
As the Queen Consort, Camilla is no longer required to curtsey to other members of the royal family but when she travels abroad she must curtsey to monarchs around the world. As a sign of respect, the Queen Consort must always walk behind her husband King Charles.
The Queen has a bath every morning, drawn by her maid while she sips a cup of tea. It's believed that the royals prefer to avoid taking showers, due to their belief that they're for members of the working class.
After Diana's tragic death at the age of 36 in a 1997 Paris car crash, her jewelry was inherited by her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. The glittering pieces collected by Diana throughout her married life held enormous sentimental value to both the princess and the princes.
It was worn for the first time to a 1994 dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. The garment has been interpreted as having been worn by Diana "in revenge" for the televised admission of adultery by her husband Charles, then Prince of Wales.
It turns out there has been no flight of fantasy in the penmanship of the show, as not only did the real Charles gift Camilla the exact same piece of jewellery with their pet names for each other, but he fobbed off Diana by telling her that it was a farewell gift for an ex-lover.
William Technically Has to Bow to Queen Camilla
“The personal impact is likely the protocol changes that roll into action almost immediately,” an insider said shortly after Charles took the throne. “The family will now have to bow or curtsy to King Charles and Queen [Consort] Camilla.”