Camilla Parker Bowles (Duchess of Cornwall) Biography

Known to most of Great Britain, and the world at large, as the woman who stole the heart of Prince Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles has become a personality and force in her own right. She is perhaps best known for her relationship with Prince Charles during his marriage to Britain's beloved Princess Diana.

A simple person who enjoys country walks, comfortable clothing and riding horses, Bowles has spent much of her high-profile marriage battling an uncertain, and often negative, public opinion of her as a person and her relationship to Prince Charles.
Born in London, but raised in Plumpton, East Susse

x, Bowles was educated at Dumbrells School and Queen’s Gate School in Kensington, London. She also attended a finishing school in Switzerland, as was common for most debutantes at that time, and made her debut into London society in 1965.

It is a little known fact that Bowles has royal connections throughout her ancestry, with a distant relation, Alice Edmonstone, having been the mistress of King Edward VII, who was Prince Charles’ great, great grandfather. Bowles met Prince Charles in 1970 at a polo match. The two began dating; however, Charles left to fulfill a family obligation with the Royal Regiment of Wales, and the two drifted apart. Bowles then met and married Andrew Parker Bowles.

Prince Charles and Bowles maintained a public friendship and private romance throughout both of their marriages; however, Bowles' first marriage ended in divorce in 1995, after it became public knowledge that they were both having extramarital affairs, Camilla with Prince Charles and Andrew with the woman he later married. Prince Charles was married at the time to Lady Diana Spencer, who had become the Princess of Wales upon the couple’s marriage in 1981.

The relationship between Charles and Camilla was common knowledge. In fact, Princess Diana wrote about it in her book of memories. She detailed horrifying scenes in her book regarding what she knew about the romance between Prince Charles and Bowles. Diana wrote that Bowles had even made an appearance at the wedding of Charles and Diana. In fact, it was even rumored that Charles and Camilla spent the night before the wedding together.

It seemed as though all of Britain was split during the divorce of Diana and Charles, with much of the public's fury being directed at Bowles, since she was targeted as the cause of the divorce.
After Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997, Prince Charles waited an appropriate amount of time and then resumed his relationship with Bowles publicly. The two were married in 2005 at Windsor Castle in a civil ceremony.

Since the couple’s wedding, Bowles has gradually attempted to win over the public and has appeared alongside the Prince in a number of community events and has even begun to make appearances on her own. Polls show that just 38% of the public has a favorable view of her ascension to the throne as Queen should Prince Charles become King of England.

A. B. Barden