Camilla Parker Bowles: the first Princess Consort

Camilla Parker Bowles will become the first Princess Consort in British history when Prince Charles becomes King.

Harold Brooks-Baker, the publishing director of Burke's Peerage, said: "They have come up with this idea of Princess Consort to make it look as if they have created something special for her. It is a non-title. There is no more difference in this name than being referred to as Mrs. Jones. Instead, they should look at using a royal title that hasn't been used for some time, such as the Duchess of Cambridge."

The closest thing to a Princess Consort was the title conferred on Prince Albert, who was officially known as Prince Consort to Victoria.

Harold Brooks-Baker said: "Queen Victoria wanted to honour Prince Albert by letting it be known that he should be called Prince Consort. It is just a rather crafty way of making it sound different. Everyone who marries a prince or princess is their consort."

Historically, the wife of the King automatically becomes Queen, although the formal title is Queen Consort.

Upon marriage to Prince Charles, Mrs. Parker Bowles will be known as HRH the Duchess of Cornwall, not the Princess of Wales. She will become Princess Consort once Charles is crowned as King of England.

Comments

[Bill Jones]

Just as the spouse of the king is his consort, so the spouse of the Prince of Wales is the Princess of Wales, whatever she elects to be called.

[Kathleen Spaltro]

In a morganatic marriage, the spouse of lesser rank and the children of the union do not take the full possession of the titles and honors of the spouse of higher rank to which mariage would normally entitle them. Camilla is too old to have children by Charles, so the morganatic status does not apply to them, but only to her: she does not take her husband's full rank if termed Duchess of Cornwall to the Prince of Wales or Princess Consort to Charles III.

Because British law does not recognize morganatic marriage as such (it was a Continental phenomenon), Camilla's taking lesser titles may be morganatic in spirit but not in law. It seems more accurate to term it quasi-morganatic and to understand it as public relations, a sop to Camilla-haters who shudder at the thought of her sharing with Diana the full title of Princess of Wales and the title Queen Consort that Diana never attained.

I have not seen any discussion of the Prince Consort/Princess Consort designation that explains that "Prince Consort" avoids naming the male spouse of a female sovereign King Consort, which might seem to undermine her authority as Queen Regnant. (Because of traditional gender roles, a Queen Consort does not pose the same threat to a King Regnant.) Just as "Prince Consort" waters down the status of a King Consort, "Princess Consort" waters down the status of a Queen Consort. By the way, Prince Philip (unlike his and the Queen's ancestor Prince Albert) is not a Prince Consort but the Duke of Edinburgh.

[Elise]

Actually, if you read the text of the press release on HRH The Prince of Wales' website, (http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/news/2005/02.feb/marriage.php) it says:

"Mrs Parker Bowles will use the title HRH The Duchess of Cornwall after marriage.

It is **intended** that Mrs Parker Bowles should use the title HRH The Princess Consort when The Prince of Wales accedes to The Throne." (emphasis on intended added)

Like the medical profession, it would appear that all bases have been covered - and that once Charles does actually accede to the Throne, Camilla's title may change - and she may be known as Queen after all....

[Brenda Dougall Merriman]

The relationship has more than passed "the test of time." They deserve a little happiness where they can find it, despite their fishbowl lives. Even the Queen and the Archbishop have acceded---without losing dignity or public opinion. The 21st century rules!

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Of course, if Camilla were Catholic, we wouldn't have to worry about Charles becoming King, would we?

What would the sucession be then? Would it still pass to Charles' eldest son, or revert to one of his siblings?

[Kathleen Spaltro]

Dino is quite right that no heir to the throne of Great Britain can marry a Roman Catholic (or become a Roman Catholic) without forfeiting her or his place in the succession.

For example, the Duchess of Kent's son stepped out of line to marry a Roman Catholic and to convert. Since then, the Duchess herself has converted to Roman Catholicism. Unlike her husband (a cousin of the Queen and grandson to George V) and her son, she has no place in the succession.

If Charles relinquished his place as heir, William would succeed, then Harry. It would only revert to Charles's next brother, Andrew, if none of Charles's issue could succeed.

[Boeuf Daisy]

This story has not been very accurately reported in the press. What has really happened is that it has been announced that it is the INTENTION (of whom is not very well specified) that Camilla will be called "Princess Consort" if she is alive when Charles becomes king. Whether that is REALLY the intention, or if it is believed that tincture of time will make the idea of Queen Camilla more palatable to the public, remains to be seen. In any case, some further action (by the Queen or by Parliament) is necessary to actually make the "Princess Consort" notion happen. All that's been done so far is to announce that that's what's intended.

Other reportage problems: quoting "Harold Brooks-Baker" as "the publishing director of Burke's Peerage" is misleading. He is not the publisher of Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, as most people would infer: he has some relationship with another Burke's firm, and his genealogical activity consists mostly of absurd pronouncements about celebrities momentarily in the spotlight. If nothing else, every four years he pops out of his hole, announces that the U.S. Presidential election will be won by the candidate with the "most royal" ancestry, and then pops back into his hole.

The actually intriguing part about the upcoming marriage is that there's considerable doubt that members of the Royal Family can actually contract a legal civil marriage in England, as they were specifically excluded from doing so in the law that set up marriage by civil registration. The universal expectation was - until this month, at least - that marriages of the king or queen and their heir would be performed by the Church of England. It's not clear if the plan for Charles and Camilla to marry civilly is an exercise in seeing if the law can simply be ignored - a bona fide effort to marry - or a means of securing a semblance of marriage whose validity can later be denied if necessary. But the last minute changes (moving the place of the marriage to a registration office) suggest that rather than being a masterly plan, it's a case of really bad advice and really bad planning. There was no need for this confusion: all Charles & Camilla need is one CoE priest to preside, and they'd have a marriage whose validity could not be gainsaid. Instead, their handlers have concocted a potentially ruinous plan.

[Ava DuPois]

Of course they have to get on with their lives, and they have been (and of course, THEY WOULD): They've been living together for ages. If institutions don't allow two people currently unencumbered by marriage to marry each other if they choose, then those institutions should change. Saying that, though, is not to say that this particular marriage isn't all rather smelly, disillusioning, and disgusting.

Whatever all this farce says about the monarchy, it certainly is an eye-opener about the Church of England. Roman Catholics and others have always liked to make out that the CofE only owes its start to (in their view) an unprincipled bowing to Henry VIII's need to be rid of his first wife and marry another to get an heir. I've always defended the CofE as part of the great Protestant movement. Yet, here have arrived again at a very similar crossroads, and how has the CofE behaved? The C of E evidently has no solid principles and only serves the State, i.e., in this case, the Royals tourist business: Is there much difference, really, between blessing a civil marriage (which incidentally for royals, as you point out, seems not even to be LEGAL--but that only adds to the basic objection, here) and conducting a church wedding? If you're going to bless it anyway, what's the difference,except sparing the participants a lot of extra bother and expense (which indeed many a person, let alone the by-all-accounts casual, horsey Camilla especially, and her like crowd, might well prefer)?

As for this being after all a triumph of love, and supposedly a Great Love Story: hooey! People who LOVE, especially in any sense of love compatible with Church teachings (you'd think), do so without harming others. Additionally, since we're talking about the heir to the Throne, there is the matter of 'duty', and 'conscience'. When Charles married Diana, he owed it to her, according to Christian teachings and the marriage vows he took, let alone what are generally considered basic principles in the Western world, to mentally leave any former love and cleave only to his wife. This it appears he NEVER did (and how great a betrayal is that! of her personally, of his wife to whom he owed a duty, and of the Church itself): yet the CofE hasn't condemned HIM (though the last Archb. of Canterbury, Carey, had the nerve to denounce Diana--but not Charles!! at a time when their extra-marital liaisons were known--and while she was alive, publicly! Clearly Diana was nowhere near the sinner Charles was, yet the Archbishop took it upon himself, when he chose to speak publicly on them, to denounce Diana!)

It does appear that Charles went through the whole wedding ritual (sacrament) with Diana, lying his way through every vow--vows that most of us consider sacred, at least at the time. He appears not to have found them sacred even at the time he was uttering them. We saw him falsely and cynically 'marry' a virginal and rather sheltered very young woman who hadn't even yet lost her babyfat, who naturally threw her whole heart into what was from the start, as she was only later to learn, evidently a charade. At that point we all only expected this of Charles, then a relatively young man of no particular occupation but very, very rich, that he be a husband (to the bride he CHOSE)--a prescription which those of the humblest stations in life, with no state obligations riding on their marriage, are likewise expected by all humanity. and the CofE, to measure up to, and many do.

In addition, we learn that while Charles was married to Diana and yet hanging out apart from her with Camilla and her friends, Camilla actually called Diana, the Princess of Wales and future Queen, in front of others (including the Prince of Wales, I believe was the story), "that ridiculous creature". Evidently the atmosphere was such, that Charles had allowed to develop, that Camilla could feel confident enough to utter such a thing; and that Charles would allow it. So much for the manners of the "aristocracy"; so much for a sense of one's place (and we know from his recent utterances that Charles is concerned about people having a sense of their 'place'!) or the fitness of things; so much for any sense of duty towards the country's traditions let alone the Christian attitude toward marriage (or the CofE's). Most ordinary husbands, whatever their current emotional mood toward their own wife, will not permit someone else to disparage her in their company. Charles instead apparently encouraged a situation to develop in which his wife, the Princess of Wales, was treated with ridicule and contempt. There element of ordinary human decency is missing, there; and more than that: calculated cruelty.

As for Camilla: what can you expect of a woman who we are told first approached Charles by suggesting they get it on (in context: sexually) by referring to her grandmother's having been his grandfather's mistress? A woman who evidently didn't mind [or more likely was determined on] fulfilling that role even while she was married to someone else and Charles had married someone else? There is a point at which would-be adulterers can step back from the brink, can just not open that Pandora's box, and this pair both owed it to others, to society, and I think it's important to remember, to ENGLAND besides, to do that. Whenever Charles came to Camilla with his "my wife doesn't understand me" or "I don't understand her" complaints, Camilla had a duty, morally AND as an Englishwoman let alone supposedly a member of the aristocracy with a sense of 'place' and the country's institutions, not to offer him all the comforts she was able, but to tell Charles to back off from her: she should have told him, Go home, little boy, and grow up: You HAVE a wife now (not to mention that Camilla had a husband). Instead we gather she did everything to alienate his inchoate affections from Diana and be his Best Friend In the World--an office Diana could be forgiven for assuming was to be hers. (The CofE certainly preaches so, and if I can recall correctly, for that I believe the Church can cite a Higher Authority.)

It does appear that from the very beginning of Charles' marriage to Diana, it was all a charade, except for Diana's innocent heart: that by opening her full heart to this man and marrying him, she was the only one marrying within the meaning prescribed by the Church, and in that she was an innocent dupe.

Plainly, Camilla is just what everyone ordinarily calls a slut, and a homewrecker. Charles is, evidently, a weak and selfish man, and a fool.

We see now on the post-'wedding' walkabout with a pre-screened public that Charles is more attentive to and solicitous about Camilla than he ever was with his innocent legal wife, Diana. Yet there again, it's not just a matter of the heart: even if his heart wasn't in it, he OWED it to his wife Diana to at least be attentive and solicitous towards her, especially in public; just as he OWED it--as even far less privileged husbands ordinarily understand--to Diana not to permit her to be disparaged by the crowd he hung around with away from her. Not even THIS, apparently, could Charles manage.

Again, the situation with Charles is that he's a rich toff with no employment or any need for any; he gets a lot of unearned (in his case, VERY unearned) deference, even devotion, from people because of he belongs by accident of birth to the institution of the monarchy (which he is expected to uphold and be an exemplar of) and the great boon it is to tourism and the national economy, and because of people's simple lingering love of their country, and some of its traditions; and so surely--without even pointing out that as a practical matter there should be some quid pro quo, here--surely, it's not too much to expect of him to conduct himself morally and at least measure up to the standards we only ask of everyone else, let alone the standards that are demanded of a Prince and future King. Instead,he has shown contempt for common decency and morality, contempt for the teachings of the CofE, contempt for England and its traditions that many another bloke has been asked to DIE for. Clearly, he may have the title, but this guy is no 'prince'. And Camilla is what we have said, above. In that regard, they make a good pair. Their behaviour has been selfish, un-Christian, and at bottom surely it can also be described as (albeit perhaps, as with so much else about them, not in a fully LEGAL sense)treasonous. Ordinary people have DIED for England, and are regularly asked to; and the CofE will bless them as they head out to war and annihilation. Yet Camilla and Charles couldn't summon the morality and integrity, the sense of 'place', the respect for institutions temporal and spiritual, the patriotism, or the true LOVE, to eschew an entanglement of their affections in such a way as to destroy Charles' marriage. That's NOT love, or at least not of the kind the Church should be blessing; and the CofE shouldn't be blessing this sorry aftermath, the triumph of a pair of adulterous schemers who cared ot for anyne else's feelings or any institution or tradition or even what most people understand to be ordinary, common human decency.

Then there's the question you raise whether their civil marriage was legal. That's a bombshell: why haven't we heard that objection, previously? If true, you should have been down there are the registry office speaking up to prevent this miscarriage. (Even in civil marriages, surely there's a point where it asked whether anyone knows of any impediment to the marriage: if you're right, then THIS is a solid impediment!)

I've always thought the Roman Catholic Church was ridiculous for (among many other things) granting annulments, even after children were born in a marriage, while steadfastly refusing to recognize divorce. I can't see that the CofE is any less ridiculous, now.

Why have a monarchy, why have a CofE? Neither sets a good example, yet they require a lot of the ordinary subjects of the realm: Your goodwill, your deference, your obeisance, your acquiescence in a 'traditional' observance of a solid vestige of a caste system, even your lives in times of war. And with all that you are supposed to swallow whatever spin they put on matters as offensive to the nostrils as Charles and Camilla's marriage being blessed by the CofE.

* * *

Lastly, could you please clear this up: I thought I read, decades ago, that Camilla was a Roman Catholic. Is that not the case? (It wouldn't surprise me, because at this point the Royals and the CofE doing ANYTHING, and trying to hush it up or put a positive spin on it, and once again getting away with it, wouldn't surprise me.)

[Ava DuPois]

According to a Chicago newspaper extract I was just reading that I found via Google, Camilla IS a Roman Catholic.

(Of course. What ELSE.)

[Ava DuPois]

The part of the blessing ceremony where the priest first tells the already-married couple what tthe Church "understands by" marriage, and then asks them each whether they intend to devote themselves to each other "forsaking all others', till death do them part, was so rich in irony that it was funny--You wonder how the priest could ask that without also asking Charles, "And THIS time, do you MEAN it?"

Surely this Charles-Camilla wedding/blessing affair is a good reason for separation of Church and state, or disestablishment of the Church: not because of anything having to do with Roman Catholics, but so that the Church will not be, and hopefully in future could be seen not to be, just bowing to exigencies of state.

This looks, however, like the Church simply ignoring some of its own principles in order to try to appear to have some sort of handle on royal behaviour when in fact obviously it hasn't any except to the extent that the royals may need, for their own continued acceptance as an institution, an appearance of obeying the Church. There's no business like show business...

Another reason to disestablish: why should monarchs be head of the Church? Imagine the prospect, that one day this same Charles will be supreme governor of the CofE. (Not that he wants the job: after all, he's on record as saying he'd rather be "Defender of Faiths", than of "the Faith".)

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Ava, tell us how you really feel.

The only mistake made was in Charles marrying Diana out of a sense of duty to produce acceptable heirs.

Now, Charles and Camilla can marry each other, which they've wanted to do for quite some time and Charles no longer has to live in Diana's shadow

And if anyone thinks that Diana was a naive, young girl when she married, they should look to her family life and the circles they traveled in. Everyone knew exactly what she was getting into. Naivete is in the eye of the beholder.

Let 'em get on with their lives.

[Ava DuPois]

To Dino, etc.
I say what I THINK, not what I "feel", as you suggest. May I suggest to you that you do the same? I can't imagine what insinuation you are making about Princess Diana's family. Why don't you state it outright? And what is your evidence?

You also say that when Diana married Charles she knew exactly what she was getting into (you must be joking: a 3-way marriage???). What is your evidence? On the contrary, on all the evidence ever aired, it appears quite plain that she did not. We have heard from her lips that she did not. If that's not enough for you, there is eyewitness testimony to her telling Camilla to "Leave my husband alone!"

Many women do not mind (though probably more do very much mind)if their husband has one or more women friends, provided that 'mere' friendship really is what it's about. In any case, if the wife objects, that's when the husband surely has to respect his wife's feelings in the matter. Wife outranks Friend, period.

When Diana--so we have heard--referred to Camilla as "the Rottweiler", it surely wasn't over Camilla's looks (which I don't think are all that bad at all, any more than Diana, though a beauty, was quite all the great beauty she was made out to be--and which in any case are IRRELEVANT: so far as Camilla is concerned, it's her CHARACTER that has been wanting, and constantly to disparage her looks, as has been going on, only obscures that real issue and perhaps incidentally in some circles even earns her some undeserved pity points), but about Camilla's sinking her teeth into someone else's husband and relentlessly hanging on, not even to be beaten off with a stick. Diana clearly felt as if she was fighting a particularly determined Rottweiler over a bone. It plainly implies that Camilla wouldn't stay out of Diana and Charles' marriage, and that this was a state most unsatisfactory to Diana.

Your saying, "The only mistake made was in Charles marrying Diana out of a sense of duty to produce acceptable heirs" is staggeringly blind; it omits the broken heart of a young girl (much younger than Charles), a virgin in fact, who innocently married that man with all the hopes and expectations, and commitment, that young brides and grooms can put into that sacred occasion, and who--even if practically everyone does it, still it is no small thing--had two children by him; she carried his children under her heart; she expected him to be a friend and a support to her, and a loving co-parent. "Only mistake"? It omits the inconvenient fact that Camilla was also married to someone else. It omits the fact that even if Charles' heart wasn't in it, especially after relations between him and Diana deteriorated (for which it certainly looks as if he must accept at least a huge share of the blame), he owed his wife a certain standard of dignity and care: he at least owed it to her not to permit others in his circles to treat her with ridicule and contempt. He had to have known that others would take their cue from him; and that they would toady to him, too; he had to have known that if disparaging Diana seemed in any way to relieve or please him, others would do it, just to earn or keep his favour: just even to continue to be in his circle. It would inevitably have been he who set the tone, and he must be taken to have known that. He owed it to Diana, as a husband, as a gentleman and dare we mention it, as a prince, to behave better.

Anyway, even though everyone treated Diana shabbily, it is thoroughly horrible that such private aspects of anyone's personal life should be so publicly raked over as hers and to a much lesser degree Charles' and Camilla's have been. Abolish the monarchy (after this monarch) once and for all, and set these people free. (Free after all to be very rich AND private.) Do it for Diana's kids.

* * *
More about the CofE in all this:

It was peculiar that the Archbishop of Canterbury said, pre-wedding, that Charles should apologize to Camilla's by now ex- (and I believe also remarried) husband. Does the Archbishop think of women as men's property, or what brought that on? And so late, too? If Charles needed to apologize to Camilla's ex, why shouldn't Camilla apologize to her ex? Why shouldn't Charles apologize to Camilla? (We think we know why: while married herself, Camilla appears to have campaigned to get and keep Charles; she was not an injured party.) If any apology were to be required--and if the Church had any right to demand one--there's in fact a long list of people Charles and Camilla might be deemed to owe an apology to, including the Queen, and the CofE itself, and, most glaringly, Diana--who wasn't mentioned (of course, lest we forget, she's conveniently dead; but as the Church purports to believe that earthly death is not our final end, or for other good reasons, the Church--as long as it was weighing in there at all in this way--might well have set some sort of term of penance concerning respect for Diana). If people don't think the Church was going too far, there, in publicly suggesting an apology by Charles to Mr. Parker-Bowles, what do people consider is too far? Why shouldn't the pair have made some public declaration of apology to Diana, or to her two (still living) sons? Or to Camilla's children? To the people of the UK and any of the remaining 'subject' countries?

It's as if the Archbishop woke up like Rip van Winkle from a long sleep and, heady with the apparent brief success of the Church's attempt to show power and relevance when it was advertised that the Church wouldn't actually marry the couple but would "only" bless the marriage, decided to take the bit in his teeth and run with it while he could: Not only refusing to marry the couple (a reservation rendered nugatory by the blessing ceremony immediately afterward), but additionally suggesting (however not, so far as I could make out, actually requiring) that Charles should apologize to Camilla's ex! (Of all people! The word is that Camilla's ex himself had affairs during their marriage; did we hear the Archbishop suggest that Parker Bowles should apologize to Camilla? Or doesn't his adultery count since she was also an adulterer? Isn't this getting rather intricate?) With regard to Charles, perhaps the Archbishop was thinking that specifically princes, more than ordinary men, need to apologize for appropriating another man's wife: if so, that would be refreshing--even if still sexist.

Next we heard that Charles and Camilla were going to be made by the Church to read some sort of contrition for their sins--not privately before the priest who would officiate at the blessing--but during the blessing ceremony. (I wondered if the Archbishop had dreamt of having Camilla walk barefoot through The City clad in nothing but a sheet to get to the ceremony, and then having to ask the congregation's forgiveness--but after all, that's already been done, and was prescribed by a reigning monarch, not a churchman). That turned out--to my relief--to be simply a General Confession--albeit in stern old language--recited by the whole congregation, including the by then just-married couple. That seemed, rather than any prescribed penitence for the couple (just married! already married, so what's the problem with them, at this point?), a reminder to us all, as the liturgy intended, that after all, we're all sinners: in other words, it was a note in the couple's favour, blending them into the community. That's as it should be: once the couple was already married, nothing about the "blessing" ceremony should have been designed to spoil that happiness.

CONSIDER THIS: What IF, on top of all the other lies and farce leading up to and surrounding this blessing ceremony, Charles and Camilla aren't even--as is after all not uncommon these days--believers? Or at least, not in the precise ways that the CofE purports to require? (Notice that "The Creed"--as it was subtitled on my tv set when I watched the blessing ceremony--made its appearance only in a foreign tongue, and sung by a [very good] performer: perhaps having it recited in plain English--let alone by all the congregants--would have been just too much for anyone to bear!) I am saying I do feel [FEEL, Dino] a little sorry for that couple if on top of everything else they weren't even really particularly adherents of the established Church: They may be sinners who have lied (and done worse), but should lies should be forced upon them? Even on (at last) their own special day?

This is a further reason for disestablishment of the Church: so that even royalty--and even their ambitious homewrecking paramours when they finally succeed to the high office they've so relentlessly pursued--can have freedom of conscience in matters of religion. For we may be sinners all, but we all, no matter who, deserve freedom of conscience in religion.

(Personally I still think that, if Roman Catholic, they should not be able to occupy the throne; nor should anyone in line for the throne marry a Roman Catholic if that would require children of the marriage to be brought up as Roman Catholics. We surely cannot just overlook what centuries of history have taught us, there; and the head of the Roman church is still also a head of state. On the other hand, when these precautions were instituted, the monarchy had more power.)

What if Charles or Camilla is an atheist? Even agnostic? (And yet had to undergo, or chose, that blessing ceremony, after the ignominy--or good luck, depending on your view--of the CofE saying it wouldn't conduct a wedding?) Of course, as we know, there's room for them, too, within the CofE--but shouldn't this sort of pretense end? Surely the Church should seek to divorce itself from any such pretense.

The CofE should be disestablished; and then if some of its adherents or bishops, who have the desire, manage to take it into a unification with the Roman church, that needn't be a matter of state, only a matter between churches: a matter for the religious beliefs of their parishioners.

[Dino (All Dino, All the Time)]

Ava,

What I meant was that Diana's family moved in the "nobility" circle for many, many years. Nothing more than that.

I also meant that with very, very few exceptions the history of royal marriages has been a history of marriages made strictly to preserve the royal line and to enhance the status of the royal house, not a history of marriages based on love.

I gave Diana the benefit of the doubt and assumed, based on her family's connections and her knowledge of history, that she knew she wasn't going to change the status quo with her marriage. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was just a naive girl, oblivious to what was going on in the world around her. But I doubt it.

[Ava DuPois]

I am not an expert on the history of royal marriages, but I think it is generally accepted (including by historians), that: Queen Victoria married for love; that the present Queen married for love; just as the modern trend in marriage generally is to marry for love. The Queen's father married for love; her uncle David, most famously, married for love but in his case (contrast with Charles'!) had to give up any right to the throne. Princess Margaret wished to marry for love, and eventually did. The Queen's other children (other than Charles) appear to have married for love. Naturally, for monarchs and those close in line for the throne there are other considerations besides those of the heart to be taken into account in a prospective marriage match, but it is only human to try to attract someone who, while able to fill that bill, is also most congenial to oneself--ideally, someone one loves or can love. Clearly Diana originally loved and was prepared to love Charles, and plainly did her job well--and right from the beginning it was so widely reported that Charles was jealous of her popularity, that one can't help wondering if it's true--the more so, this many years on, when we have witnessed what else he's capable (and incapable) of.

I also believe that after Diana and Charles split, the royal family could have protected Diana from a significant measure of that dreadful stalking and harassment by the paparazzi, if it had ever wanted to. Surely, if it had brought its influence to bear, it could have spared Diana a lot of at least that kind of grief (not to speak of bringing influence to bear upon Charles to behave like a husband). By contrast, for example, in the propaganda leading up to Charles' and Camilla's wedding Camilla was shown striding along a walk into a building, in the centre of a sheltering V of bodyguards, who kept the paparazzi (and the bun-throwers, I suppose) at bay--as is, I suppose, only appropriate. How nice for 'the Rottweiler'!

Also: Surely I'm not alone in being insulted by the blatant propaganda leading up to and surrounding this wedding. I doubt most people are fooled: A sow's ear is still a sow's ear (and I am not alluding, there, to anyone's looks). Diana was treated cruelly, from the start. If she later learned how to dish it out a bit herself, that appears to be justifiable (and even rather tardy!) self-defence, to be applauded rather than deplored. I doubt time can fully erase the taint on the royal family for this eye-opening, contemptuous way Diana was treated (and permitted to be treated). At least, I hope people's memories are not that short.

[Ava DuPois]

My point about royal love matches (in case it's not clear) was, contra Dino, that Diana Spencer had every reason to suppose her upcoming marriage would be a love match, or at the very least that it was to be undertaken with hearts on both sides fully open to the development, within marriage, of love. She may even perhaps have been prepared (out of love) to be 'sophisticated' or 'liberal' about her soon-to-be-husband's strong friendship with another woman (if Diana was aware of it)--but of course, such an attitude would likely depend upon two conditions: One, that friendship was all it was, or else all that it was going to be, and two, that Charles would do the right thing, the decent thing, and not ALLOW it to be the type of friendship that would supersede Diana's in his affections. We are hypothesizing here, but after all it would only be normal for her to think that. However, it appears (from public programs on the subject) that she did get some inkling, when the wedding itself was imminent, that possibly Charles was rather too attached to Camilla. Too much for comfort at that point. What COULD Diana do then? It's difficult, for all kinds of reasons, for anyone to call off one's wedding, close to the date, let alone do that when it's involving royalty, the public, and international media, and what's more, all the souvenirs have already been printed. It was only natural for Diana -- and she was still a very young woman at the time -- to go ahead with the wedding and naturally expect that Charles would do the right thing and not give first place in his affections to some other woman not his wife who in fact anyway was already married herself. No, I think that's too much for any young bride to envision. THE WORLD didn't envision it. For one thing, it's dirty pool. Not just un-princely, and scandalous, but a very dirty trick.

Diana Spencer, up till her marriage, apparently was not worldly wise (for if that's all the Royal Family had wanted for a bride, they could have chosen Camilla!): she had not had a worldly life, but in fact a rather sheltered one. (Her parents divorced; her mother was living in Australia and I gather they had next to no contact; Diana lived at public school and when not there, was living on a country estate; she was separated by age from her older sisters; she did not go to university; she was a virgin; she worked with toddlers). Anyway, I protest that it's not well-informed or even worldly-wise to suspect that Charles was springing a 3-way marriage on Diana, for WHO WOULD have imagined it?

Remember that Camilla and Charles were trying to keep their affair (somewhat) secret; and even that was probably to spare themselves, not Diana: It would have been a huge scandal, and Camilla as well was already married (and for all I know, already by then a parent, besides). Apparently they developed a circle who would open their houses to them for quiet trysts.

I don't see how anyone could think Diana was expecting too much, or simply naive (though there's no sin in being naive), to think that Charles would at least be open to, and disposed towards, loving her as his wife, or that this might unfold over time. That he apparently wasn't, and didn't, seems to me a great scandal and greater sin.

No, Diana wasn't stupid (in that regard, anyway), nor was she a 'flake' (certainly not more than Charles is or has been a flake), as the anti-Diana propaganda mill keeps trying to make out. Nor is Charles any Renaissance Man!

Married couples sometimes come to some sort of 'arrangement' with each other, after a few years of marriage, whereby they each 'go their own way' while staying together in the same household. I doubt very much, however, that there are many people who have that attitude, GOING IN to the marriage. From the start, when everything is new, surely most people--even royals, to judge by recent history--are expecting their own spouse to be their true life partner and best friend. I don't think Diana was stupid or naive for supposing it would unfold that way for her and her husband, too--perhaps all the more because she was after all marrying a public figure who one might suppose was held, and held himself, to a higher standard of conduct even than most others. A prince. (As I say, he may have the title, but he's after all no prince.)

To say as you have, Dino, that you simply assumed Diana knew certain things (which, really, few young brides would anticipate and that are, frankly, disgusting), and that in so doing you were giving Diana 'the benefit of the doubt', is of course slickly insulting to her (some benefit! some doubt!)(to echo another Spencer)--and is alas just more of the sorry, negative propaganda still being directed at Diana and her memory. The woman isn't even around to defend herself anymore, and yet the propaganda keeps churning out. Assuming you aren't part of the "Windsor" or some government (tourist bureau?) propaganda machine, are you perhaps just at bottom a bit of a misogynist? Or misanthrope? Is there something about seeing innocence crushed that titillates you? Well, we all root for Sylvester against Tweety Bird, don't we--but Diana (despite all the efforts to make her out one) was no cartoon. She surely doesn't deserve disapproval just for having had an innocent heart (or mind). It's that heart thing--yes, her open heart, and the marriage vows, the love and commitment that make marriage sacred--that makes the Church of England's role in this relevant, and in a way that (so I've been arguing) doesn't do it much credit, either.

As for the Camilla/Charles "blessing ceremony": for some appropriate music perhaps they should have asked SIR Elton John to recycle "Benny and the Jets".

[Ava DuPois]

I can't resist also adding that Diana's family didn't only "move in the nobility circle", Dino: they are nobility. Long-established nobility. In fact, they have centuries longer contact with England than a good chunk of the Windsor family has. (Not that that matters for much, just this perhaps: you'd think any family that has to trade upon tradition the way the Windsors have to, that owes its metier and public sufferance to matters traditional, would be mindful of such things before it so right royally plucked such an English rose, cast her aside and trod her under foot.)

[Ava DuPois]

I should have said, "Chuck'd her aside".

[AvaDuPois]

Further on naivety: Even if, Dino, you're by any chance hinting that Charles really is gay and Camilla simply his favourite beard, Charles STILL owed it to Diana to treat her better, and not make her a figure of ridicule. (the taped phone conversation that was publicly broadcast--wherein this Prince supposedly was caught exposing his romantic side, not to mention his elite education and flair for poetic expression, in declaring that in a second life he would like to return as a tampon snugged up inside Camilla [talk about a desire to return to the womb!], and which ended with the memorably poetic phrase from this princely lover, "Press...the...tit"--seemed for a while to put an end that rumour, as, crude though the language was, it seemed to indicate heterosexuality (and was in fact the first solid indication the public had had that Charles leaned in that direction); but as we all know, a former member of Charles' staff has since given the rumour new life; and when Diana said there were three people in the marriage, I suppose one could observe that she didn't explicitly name Camilla as the third; and then, one might even wonder how and why THAT particular tape, seeming to indicate heterosexuality, got into the 'wrong' hands, even to be publicly broadcast, and also why, if Charles were truly so enamored of Camilla, he apparently couldn't think of anything better to say, even supposedly extemporaneously, that any woman is likely to be pleased to hear.) Charles wouldn't be the only gay in the upper classes who ever took a wife. I rather suppose that third dimension, if you will, doesn't necessarily preclude love between the marriage partners. It certainly doesn't preclude having children. Surely the etiquette even in such circumstances must be that the Wife (where one has bothered to acquire a wife) gets to be Favourite Beard (if that's all she is to the guy--and that's rather sad) unless and until she wishes to give that position up--or at least, from the start of the marriage until the couple may tire of each other. Even if Charles were gay, it was not right for him to just dump Diana and put Camilla in the social position of being his wife. Marriage is a statement to the community, to the world at large. In ALL circumstances, the wife deserves to be treated with dignity, and respect for her feelings. Not just as Charlie's chuckaway.

Interesting to suppose, though, that perhaps THE wedding Charles might have wanted, that the CofE wouldn't perform, wan't necessarily between him and Camilla.

Which brings us to wondering, re the CofE and other churches, why it is that supposed Christians whose supposed Lord taught that the supreme value was love, seek to bar loving gay couples from marrying each other. Gay couples, too, want that chance to say to the community and the world: this is my beloved. And past the time when one's heart seems to be bursting with the love that one yearns to declare, marriage is still a status of some dignity. To me it looks very UN-Christian to want to deny them that.

Anyway, the Church's being morally backward in this matter doesn't entitle Charles or anyone else to treat his wife as if their marriage is or has been a thing of no consequence.

There is simply NO excuse for it; it was cruel; and the propaganda mill in Charles' favour is in full swing again, ever trying to diminish her and tarnish or (if possible) actually obliterate her memory. It's outrageous, and deeply offensive on a moral level, besides insulting to the general public's intelligence.

(I think I am, finally, quite wound down on this subject, here. If I've had a lot to say it's partly because I don't see much defence of Diana, though I'm certain people feel it; it takes time, after all, to bother. Yet the pro-Chuck, anti-Diana propaganda mill is in full swing again, ever trying to diminish her, to tarnish her memory and if possible to obliterate it. Sometimes one just has to finally shout it out that the Emperor has no clothes: You can't get away with this! Don't try to foist cheatin' Chuck and that ambitious, morally bankrupt homewrecker Camilla on us as some pair of paragons we should accord any deference to just because they finally married and they're "royal". Royal rogues! Above all, don't try to foist them on us as if there is no past, as if Diana never existed, or as if whatever happened she deserved, or should even have expected what she got. I hope that more people will speak up in Diana's defence--as alas we never did while she was still alive and being hounded on all sides. Foisting Chuck and Cam on us without apologies is like saying war on Iraq was justified because there was evidence (there definitely was not) that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction". Chuck and Cam are weapons of mass distraction--but not even fitting ones! To present them to us as a couple in any good way representing the UK or as worthy of any public deference, is at bottom an insult to us all, the general public, by people we like to suppose should know better. Some nerve! Have they seriously miscalculated this time the general public apathy and tendency to inertia, or will everyone just take the easy route and play along with the propaganda? Just let it slide until they believe it? We're after all all very busy in this modern world, and there are things we care about a lot more. However, it is my hope that people's memories or sense of what is fair play are not so short.)

[Nikita2224]

Question asked by Ava -is Camilla a Catholic?No she isn't, Andrew P.B her ex is.The Roman Catholic Church doesn't recognise divorce, and in its eyes Camilla is still married to Andrew.It doesn't recognise his second marriage which was in a registry office either.Quite where this leaves English Catholics is a thought.If Charles attempts to put Camilla on the throne when the time comes we cannot recognise her.

[Nikita2224]

The Spencers are indeed old nobility,related by marriage to most of the noble houses of England,called "The Whig Cousinocracy"-Winston Spencer-Churchill was their cousin.They also descend from the Royal House of Stuart through Charles 11 and James 11,and back on one side to the Royal Anglo-Saxon House of Wessex.Diana was Charles 6th cousin from one line and his 7th cousin from the other.I notice people trying to find links between Charles and Camilla?Well her grandmother Sophie was probably Edward 7ths illegitimate daughter from Mrs.Kepple.

[Jim S]

In greatest respect to Kathleen S., who posted in February 2005 :

"If Charles relinquished his place as heir, William would succeed, then Harry. It would only revert to Charles's next
brother, Andrew, if none of Charles's issue could succeed."

It is my understanding that if Charles relinquished his place as heir, then William and Harry would be, politely, "out of luck" to assume the throne, since Charles would have relinquished his heirs rights as well. Andrew would be the next King.