"A torrid affair": the royal quartet that rocked the palace

Among the great introductions of history, the sentence that Camilla reportedly told Prince Charles when they met for the first time in the early 1970s was a doozy: "You know, sir, my great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather -grandfather – when is it? "

Unfortunately, this is not what she actually said.

Vanity Fair's biographer and former editor, Tina Brown, in The Diana Chronicles, says that the first words that the equestrian enthusiast told the future king during a polo match were much more sober – but still gloomy: "C & # 39; is a beautiful animal have there sir ".

(There is a third version, which introduces the former wife of Charles, Lucia Santa Cruz, daughter of a former ambbadador of Chile,).

Whatever the true story, in the early 1970s, the future king was the most eligible man in the world and was (supposedly) glorifying the time he did what boys 20 and under do everywhere. – go with joy.

And then, the coup de grace, in the summer of 1971, when he met Camilla.

At the time, her own love life was complicated.

In 1966, at the age of 19, she met the dashing Andrew Parker Bowles. He was a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals regiment of the Royal Horse Guards, his parents were wealthy (they owned a castle in the Berkshire) and were connected.

His father was close to the Queen Mother and Andrew himself served as a page at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953.

Camilla, according to all accounts, was hit with Andrew from the start. The couple was dating for years before she finally drove him to the altar.

However, during this period, many other women were also charmed by the dashing military, including Princess Anne.

One of his friends said, "Andrew could never resist a challenge, and nothing was as aphrodisiac as it was inaccessible." The women did not hesitate to crack for him – he seemed to force them to love him.

In 1970, Anne and Andrew were at the heart of what Brown describes as a "hot affair," and there was speculation at the time that marriage might even be contemplated. Although Andrew is Catholic, Anne should have given up any claim to the throne.

The fact that Andrew was at Anne's side at the Royal Ascot and that he even stayed at Windsor Castle was credible.

So it was a coincidence in 1971, when the man she wanted to marry adored the princess royal, it happened that Camilla was starting an affair with the older brother of his romantic rival?

Junor thinks no and in her book, the Duchess claims that Camilla reacted with "fury" when she discovered that Andrew – before their engagement – was dating Princess Anne and entertaining her romantic relationship with Charles " to have some excitement and make Andrew jealous ".

"When she (Camilla) was introduced to Charles, he thought that she was quite special and that she thought he was going pretty well," Junor said in 2017. "And she thought that Andrew was currently on leave with Princess Anne, I "I'm going to teach her a lesson, so she had an affair with Charles. "

In her 2007 biography, The Diana Chronicles, Brown wrote: "There was a romantic reenactment of (The badually charged play) La Ronde on the dance floor at Annabel, a 1971 night, when it was clear that Princess Anne was in love with Andrew Parker Bowles, Camilla was in love with him too, and Charles was in love with Camilla.

Things were getting very complicated.

For the first time, the connection between Charles and Camilla continued, relatively happy, while the duo went to the city or went to the opera house.

In December 1972, the Prince finally took the plunge and told his girlfriend that he loved her during a weekend at Broadlands, the property of her uncle Lord Mountbatten, who was the only one of his kind. he would have often used for heart badignments.

The question of whether he should have proposed this weekend is open to debate. (Camilla was a woman "with a past" as they say, just as marriage was not important in the eyes of the establishment.) However, the most interesting question may be whether or not Camilla would have said yes.

"The love of Camilla's life was not Prince Charles, but the man with whom she had married his first – Andrew Parker Bowles," Brown explained.

In 1973, Charles had to leave the UK for eight months for a Caribbean naval tour. In April of the same year, he came to Antigua and learned that Andrew and Camilla had to get married.

(One story is that her parents were so tired of "they go, they go" they just made an engagement announcement in the Times to force Andrew's hand.)

According to Junor, after learning this devastating news, Charles reportedly wrote to Camilla asking him not to attend the wedding, but without success.

The prince was heartbroken. "I guess the feeling of emptiness will eventually disappear," he wrote to a friend at the time, saying his relationship with Camilla had been "such a happy, peaceful and mutually happy relationship."

The union of Andrew and Camilla in July 1973 was the society wedding of the year, with 800 guests including Queen Mother, Princess Anne and Princess Margaret.

Barely two months earlier, in May of this year, Princess Anne married Captain Mark Phillips at a royal wedding televised at Westminster Abbey, which had been watched by about 500 million people.

From the beginning, the Parker-Bowles union was heated, accusing Andrew of being unfaithful enough early in their marriage, including with his wife's friends. For some reason, Camilla largely turned a blind eye and in 1974, their first child, her son Tom, was born. And who did she ask to be a sponsor? Who else than Charles.

It's a tragedy that finally brought Charles and Camilla together.

In 1979, the IRA badbadinated Lord Mountbatten, a man who had played a huge role in the life of the future king, and she immediately offered his unwavering support. Coincidently, just four months later, Andrew was badigned to Zimbabwe to help the country gain independence.

When rumors about Andrew's alleged infidelity in Africa reached his wife, it seems almost inevitable that what happened next. The prince, who now frequented Lady Diana Spencer, fell back into the arms of her former master of ceremonies. (As everyone said, "Only Camilla Parker Bowles could find a way to warm up a puff.")

And the rest, it's messy history.

Today, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall are two septuagenarians who seem to be still in love with each other. And during Ascot week this year, Princess Anne was photographed spending a fantastic day with a very familiar face by her side – Andrew Parker Bowles.