Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall celebrated her 72nd birthday on July 17, a little over 14 years since becoming a bona fide member of the royal family by marrying Prince Charles at Windsor Guildhall in 2005.
Over the course of their decades long romance, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales have celebrated many milestones together, attending glittering gala dinners, taking long trips for overseas tours and throwing historic parties at their London home of Clarence House.
WATCH Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles looking loved up at a British garden party!
But during the early years of their romance, which dates back to 1971 when they first met at a polo match, the Duchess – then Camilla Shand – reportedly crushed Charles with the heartbreaking revelation that she was engaged to Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles.
According to royal author Penny Junor, Camilla told the Queen’s eldest son of her engagement in 1973 while he was stationed in the Caribbean with the British navy, Express.co.uk reports.
“She wrote to Charles herself to tell him. It broke his heart,” Ms Junor writes in her 2017 book The Duchess: The Untold Story.
Ms Junor reveals the heir to the throne tried to change Camilla’s mind, and even wrote to her the week before her wedding pleading with her to call off the marriage.
Camilla’s mother Rosalind was reportedly on the Prince’s side as she “didn’t think Andrew treated her daughter very well”, but the wedding went ahead in London on July 4, 1973 regardless.
Camilla and Andrew went on to welcome two children, daughter Laura and son Tom.
Eight years later, Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer – Princess Diana – in the royal wedding of the century at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
But the union was marred by Charles’ enduring love for Camilla, which continued throughout his 11-year marriage.
In fact, despite the Princess of Wales’ insistence that Camilla should not be invited, she was a guest at their wedding.
After welcoming sons Prince William and Prince Harry, the Wales’ marriage came crashing down in 1992 amidst the royal scandal of the decade when the press released tapes of intimate conversations between Queen Elizabeth‘s heir and Camilla Parker Bowles.
WATCH Princess Diana’s famous interview about Charles and Camilla’s affair:
Dubbed ‘Camillagate’, the tapes confirmed that the Prince was having an affair and soon after Charles and Princess Diana announced their separation.
Andrew and Camilla divorced in 1995, while Charles and Diana’s legal separation was finalised in 1996.
Princes Charles and Camilla finally got their happily ever after in the early 2000s, with the soon-to-be Duchess moving into Charles’ royal residence Clarence House in 2003.
Buckingham Palace announced their engagement in February 2005, and the couple married in a low key civil ceremony on April 9 making Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall.
Despite initial frostiness from senior members of the royal family, including the Queen and Prince Philip, Camilla has gradually cemented her popularity among the Windsors and the British public alike.
In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II officially declared her approval by naming Camilla Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order.
Today, Camilla is a much-loved royal and a doting grandmother to Laura’s three children and Tom’s one, as well as a step-grandmother to the Duke of Cambridge and Kate Middleton‘s three kids – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis – and the Duke of Sussex and Meghan Markle‘s newborn baby Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
