In 2005, when then-Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles, Queen Elizabeth II had her private secretary draw up an unusual document. It stated that Princess Anne would never have to curtsy to Camilla. A former courtier told the press at the time: “This was done at the behest of Princess Anne and Princess Alexandra, who saw no reason to make obeisance to this highly unpopular woman.”
“Princess Anne, in particular, was extremely chilly towards Camilla and made it clear she had no intention of curtsying to her ever.”
Why such animosity between two middle-aged women? For the oldest, and most mundane, of reasons… love.
Because, when Camilla was beginning her relationship with Charles around 1970, her on-again-off-again boyfriend, the dashing Andrew Parker Bowles, was sleeping with Princess Anne. They created, not a ‘love triangle’, but a bizarre love rectangle, involving the Queen’s two oldest children.
“They will never be friends”
Series 3 of the Netflix series The Crown, broadcast in 2018, focused on the beginnings of this most surprising of royal feuds. At the time, a Palace insider commented to Woman’s Day magazine: “Anne and Camilla have always had bad blood and this is unearthing a lot of old wounds. Make no mistake – there’s no hope of these royal rivals becoming friends!”
But fast forward six years and it appears that is exactly what has happened. In November, Anne presented her sister-in-law with an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of London, and the two women could not have looked closer, or happier in each other’s company.
Anne, who has been chancellor of the university since 1981, praised Camilla for her “exceptional efforts” to promote adult literacy. As well as her many visits to schools, workplaces, and prisons across the Commonwealth, she launched The Queen’s Reading Room as an online book club during COVID – it’s now a registered charity.
The sisters-in-law traveled to the ceremony together, with the Princess Royal even giving the Queen a hand to navigate some tricky steps at the entrance of the hall. And, ironically, Camilla had to kneel in front of Chancellor Anne to receive her doctorate!
Rivals in love
It’s all a very different atmosphere from the 1970s when Anne embarked on a love affair with the charismatic young cavalry officer who would go on to become Camilla’s husband. In fact, Camilla was seeing Andrew when he dumped her to start a romance with Anne. And Camilla was apparently so furious about his wandering eye that she got her sweet revenge by starting an affair of her own – with Anne’s brother, Prince Charles.
“He [Andrew] was a cad, he was bonking other people, some of her friends,” royal biographer Penny Junor has said of Andrew. “So, when she was introduced to Charles, she thought, ‘Andrew is at the moment off with Princess Anne; I’ll teach him a lesson'”.
Both love affairs were thwarted for similar reasons. While Camilla is now generally acknowledged to be the true constant love of Charles’ life, at the time the Palace is said to have disapproved of a marriage, because of her ‘history’ with other partners. They separated in 1973.
And, according to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, Andrew Parker Bowles, as a Catholic, was never going to be allowed to marry a member of the royal family, as specified by the Act of Settlement 1701. So his romance with Anne was never going to last. And Anne, as fourth in line to the throne, would have been completely aware of that at the time –despite the fact that she was reportedly devastated when he called a halt to their romance in 1973, only to announce he was going to marry Camilla.
Married on the rebound
It’s also widely believed in royal circles that Anne, shattered by the end of her relationship with Parker Bowles, threw herself into a rebound romance and married cavalryman Captain Mark Phillips – a union that didn’t last and caused the royal family untold stress.
Some said that Anne’s feelings for Andrew Parker Bowles never really went away and she remained in love with him across the decades of his marriage to Camilla.
To this day, he is one of Anne’s best friends. He is godfather to her daughter, Zara. (While King Charles is godfather to the Parker Bowles’ son, Tom!)
“Even when their romance eventually wound down, they remained lifelong friends,” writes Bedell Smith, noting that Anne and Andrew had much in common. She also notes rumours that they continued to have a relationship even after their respective marriages.
Of Princess Anne’s 1992 divorce, Bedell Smith wrote: “They had separated three years earlier after persistent reports that both had been unfaithful – in Anne’s case with, among others, Andrew Parker Bowles.”
So many complicated relationships to negotiate in such a confined royal space!
“The fact that Andrew left Camilla for Anne and then continued to be her friend after they got back together is something that always irked Camilla,” one royal insider said.
“Apparently, she was never happy about Andrew’s relationship with Anne, who probably didn’t like that Camilla was so close to Charles either. There’s been bitterness there for a long time now and they’ve been famously frosty ever since.”
“London’s best lover”
Despite the fact that he has just turned 85, Andrew Parker Bowles and his famously charismatic charm are back in the gossip columns. That’s partly because of his new romance with the stern former host of The Weakest Link and Countdown, Anne Robinson, but mainly because of the new Disney+ version of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals.
It was always rumoured that Andrew Parker Bowles was the inspiration for sexy ex-Olympic show jumper turned Tory MP, Rupert Campbell-Black, in the original book, Rivals.
And Jilly Cooper confirmed on a podcast last October, that she did indeed base the aristocrat – described in her raunchy 1988 novel as “the handsomest man in England” – on Andrew.
“He’s been a great friend for a long time… so he’s very like Rupert. He’s beautiful and blond and stunning,’ she laughed.
In Jilly Cooper’s books, Campbell-Black is flatteringly described as “well-constructed… from the broad flat shoulders to the lean muscular hips and powerful thighs, he seemed perfectly in proportion.” And, for many decades Andrew Parker Bowles has discreetly deflected the more exaggerated stories of his bedroom conquests, but he was once famously described as “London’s best – and busiest – lover.”
Royal expert Richard Kay wrote: “All too often, the women were indeed friends of his wife, and showed scant loyalty to her by succumbing to his charms.”
According to royal author Penny Junor: “Today, looking back, he would admit that if blame were to be apportioned for the way his marriage ended, he’d feel obliged to take a full 80 percent of it.”
British author Petronella Wyatt also wrote about Parker Bowles’ alleged unfaithfulness in the Daily Mail in 2022: “For three decades, beginning in the late 1960s, Andrew was the lothario of London, and the name on everyone’s lips. Tall, handsome, and athletic, he was sophisticated, witty, and priapic. Half the women who knew him were in love with him and the other half panted to meet him.”
One of his exes was reported as saying: “Andrew is like a drug. You can’t really get him out of your system.”
Yet, just like his Jilly Cooper character, Parker Bowles seemed to get away with it all and still remain beloved. Richard Kay points out the affairs were accepted as just “a fact of life and not something Camilla often spoke about”, noting there ‘was never a tense atmosphere in the couple’s home’. When Andrew and Camilla finally did divorce in 1995, with her taking much of the blame, after 22 years of marriage and two children, Tom and Laura, they have all remained close.
“Intimidated”
Andrew was a guest at Camilla’s 2005 wedding to Charles, and he was also at their Coronation in 2023. Indeed, as well as being one of Princess Anne’s “best friends”, he is also one of Camilla’s.
“They are joined at the hip,” says a family friend.
“They have lunch together the whole time. He was always, and still is, Camilla’s co-conspirator.”
While Anne and Andrew remain ‘hugely fond of each other’, many mutual friends have pointed out that Camilla felt intimidated by Princess Anne. With her famously no-nonsense, bristly personality and supreme confidence in her position as the daughter of the Queen, “Anne definitely had the upper hand.”
Camilla, even though she had “won the man” – and possessed the strength of character to survive a decade as the most ‘hated woman in Britain’ – still felt intimidated by Charles’ abrasive younger sister. We can only imagine how she felt in 2005 when finally married Charles, she was told that Anne would not be curtsying to her. Ever!
Anne paves the way for happiness
Ironically, however, it was because of Princess Anne that Camilla was finally allowed to marry Charles.
The late Queen had always been unforgiving of their romance because of the history behind it and the scandal it had caused. But, when Anne fought to divorce Mark Phillips and marry the man she’d been having an affair with (Timothy Lawrence), and the sky didn’t fall in, the Queen finally softened.
It seems now, two decades later, these two stalwart royal women have forged the supportive friendship they both deserve – working together to support their beloved King Charles and somehow both remaining ‘best friends’ with the charismatic but unfaithful charmer they once adored.
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