Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles recently celebrated 15 years of marriage. However their romance actually goes back to the 1970s, before the Prince of Wales married his first wife, Princess Diana.
WATCH: Princess Diana was sent a ‘surprise letter’ by Camilla
Charles and Camilla dated in the 1970s, however when the future king was away on a royal tour, she became engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles, who she married in 1973.
In 1977 Charles met Lady Diana Spencer when he was dating her elder sister, Lady Sarah.
By 1980, Diana was a guest at a country weekend and, in between playing polo, Charles started taking an interest in her as a potential bride.
The couple dated for months before Charles popped the question in 1981, however Camilla remained in the picture.
Some even believe that Camilla encouraged Charles to date Diana.
Tina Brown recalls a conversation with Camilla’s former brother-in-law Richard Parker Bowles in her 2007 book The Diana Chronicles.
She noted that Camilla “initially encouraged the relationship between Charles and Diana because she thought Diana was gormless”.
Her comments in a 1985 Vanity Fair article go into further detail.
She noted how Camilla characterised Diana as “the blushing little Spencer girl” and described how, by 1980, Charles was under ever-increasing pressure to marry from his family and the press.
“His family wanted it. The public wanted it,” Tina Brown wrote.
“Like the last Prince of Wales, he liked to confide in married women, and his two favourites, Lady Tryon and Camilla Parker Bowles, wanted it.
“They had met the blushing little Spencer girl and deduced she was not going to give them any trouble.
“Prince Charles was exhausted. He proposed.”
The Prince of Wales had wed Lady Diana Spencer, who became known as Princess Diana, in 1981.
The couple were married for 15 years before divorcing, but their relationship was plagued by rumours of infidelity.
And none were more scandalous that the Prince and Camilla’s relationship, a woman he had known since they were in their twenties, which was something that was constantly commented on.
Writing in 1992, five years before Diana’s death, author Andrew Morton noted in his book Diana: Her True Story that the rumours erupted during a special yachting trip.
At the time Diana and Charles were “sleeping in separate cabins” with the Princess opting to spend more time with her children, Princes William and Harry.
The holiday was a family affair, and included Princess Alexandra, her husband Sir Angus Ogilvy, the Romseys and their children, Mr Morton noted.
But one encounter with Camilla that left Diana raging, leaving her “suspicions of Charles’ affair” clear.
Mr Morton wrote: “Diana had little day-to-day contact with her husband, sleeping in a separate cabin and preferring to eat with her children rather than the adults.
“The underlying tension was not helped when Diana picked up a ship-to-shore telephone to discover her husband in the midst of a long call to his long-time friend, Camilla Parker Bowles.
“It provided further fury for Diana’s suspicions regarding her husband’s relationship with Camilla, misgivings which had been consistently derided as the fantasies of a sick woman.”
He added: “Princess Margaret and a group of friends who joined the Wales’ party for a time noticed the gloomy mood on the Latsis yacht.
“‘The marriage is all over bar the statement,’ said one of the yacht’s guests after the royal party returned to London.
“‘The holiday was a shambles for the adults.
“‘It was organised for the children a long time ago so on that level it was a success’.”
Camilla’s call to Charles was just another nail in the coffin of his marriage to Diana.
The Prince and Princess of Wales split, and were divorced in 1996, just one year before Diana’s untimely death in a Paris car crash.
Charles went on to wed Camilla, who had divorced her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, in 1995.
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