Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince Charles have been happily married since 2005. However, their relationship had undergone a very rocky beginning. Most people know about the scandal that their affair had caused — particularly with the high-profile moves that Princess Diana had done amid her tumultuous marriage with the Prince of Wales. Up to her untimely and tragic passing in 1997, the media had dogged all of them, painting a very unflattering light on them all.
What most people don’t know, however, was that before the trio had been caught in the middle of the media’s onslaught, there was a “torrid affair” that could have rivaled the issues raised by the Princess of Wales. Before the heir apparent’s lovestruck meeting with Camilla in 1971, the Duchess of Cornwall had a very complicated situation in her love life. She was very much smitten with a man called Andrew Parker Bowles — whom she would go on to date on and off for years before eventually marrying.
What made it complicated was the other woman whose eye Andrew had caught — Princess Anne, the Princess Royal. According to biographer and former Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown in her book “The Diana Chronicles,” Andrew and Anne had a “torrid affair,” which could actually have led to marriage.
When Camilla found out about it, she was in a “fury,” claims Penny Junor in her book “The Duchess.” And this led her to date Charles “to have some excitement and make Andrew jealous.”
“When she (Camilla) was introduced to Charles he thought she was pretty special and she thought he was a bit of all right,” wrote Junor. “And she thought ‘Andrew is at the moment off with Princess Anne, I’ll teach him a lesson’ so she had a fling with Charles.”
Camilla was quite happy with her relationship with Charles, with the two hitting the town or going to the opera once in a while. What became up for debate, however, was whether she really wanted to be with Charles in the long run. “The love of Camilla’s life was not Prince Charles but the man she married first — Andrew Parker Bowles,” argued Brown.
What changed the status quo was Prince Charles’ naval tour in 1973 and returning to an engaged Camilla. A story suggests that Camilla’s parents pressured Andrew into marriage by posting a wedding announcement for the two. The rest, as they say, is history.
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