In 2005, King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales married his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles. The marriage of the then Prince Charles and Camilla was the culmination of a love affair that spanned five decades, scandalizing England, the greater world, and Queen Elizabeth II herself. However, after surviving divorces, the tragic death of Princess Diana, and public ridicule, the king and queen consort have emerged as a strong team, now charged with leading the fractured British royal family into the future. A timeline of King Charles and Camilla’s tumultuous relationship proves that sometimes royals get their own fairy-tale ending.

1970: When Prince Charles and Camilla First Meet

In the summer of 1970, the fun-loving 24-year-old debutante Camilla Shand reportedly met 22-year-old Prince Charles at a polo match at Great Windsor Park. Legend has it that she quipped to him, “My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather, so how about it?” 

For Prince Charles, it was allegedly love at first sight, and the couple began a relationship that he has described as “blissful, peaceful, and mutually happy.” However, forces were pulling the young couple apart, and they eventually broke up.

1973: Camilla Marries Andrew Parker Bowles

After years of sporadic dating, Camilla Shand married debonair Army Cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973. They had two children, Laura and Tom.

1981: Prince Charles Marries Lady Diana Spencer

On July 29, 1981, Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer before a television audience of 750 million people. But according to Princess Diana, the wedding festivities were dampened when, days before the nuptials, she discovered a gift Prince Charles had made for Camilla. It was a gold bracelet, with a charm engraved with the letters F and G, which stood for Fred and Gladys, Prince Charles and Camilla’s pet names for each other.

1986: The Affair Between Charles and Camilla Resumes

Unable to stay away from each other, and unhappy in their respective marriages, Prince Charles and Camilla reportedly began having an affair in 1986. Prince Charles later admitted to cheating on Princess Diana but only after their marriage had “irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.”

1989: Diana Confronts Camilla

In 1989, Princess Diana confronted Camilla about the affair at a birthday party, in what she called one of her bravest moments. “I said, ‘I know what’s going on between you and Charles, and I just want you to know that,’” Princess Diana told Andrew Morton. “She said to me: ‘You’ve got everything you ever wanted. All the men in the world fall in love with you, and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?’ So I said, ‘I want my husband.’”

1993: Camillagate

In 1993, The Sunday Mirror and People published transcripts of a private 1989 phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla. The lurid conversation featured sexual banter between the two, including Prince Charles musing, “Oh, God. I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier!” He then joked that he might be transformed into her tampon.

1995 & 1996: His and Her Divorces

Her affair with Prince Charles exposed to the world, Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles divorced in 1995. One year later, in 1996, the divorce between Prince Charles and Princess Diana was finalized. For Camilla, it brought some relief from years of extreme public scrutiny.

“I was scrutinized for such a long time that you just have to find a way to live with it,” Camilla told British Vogue in June. “Nobody likes to be looked at all the time and, you know, criticized and…But I think in the end, I sort of rise above it and get on with it. You’ve got to get on with life.”

1999: Testing the Waters

After Princess Diana’s tragic death in 1997, plans to slowly introduce Camilla to the public were put on hold. In January 1999, the two were finally photographed together in public, leaving a birthday party for Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot, at the Ritz Hotel in London.

2005: The Marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles

On April 9, 2005, a beaming Prince Charles and a visibly nervous Camilla were married in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. The marriage was then blessed at St. George’s Chapel. Prince Harry and Prince William were in attendance. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were not at the civil ceremony but attended the blessing. Upon her marriage, Camilla was styled the Duchess of Cornwall.

2016: The Queen Honors Camilla

In 2016, the queen honored the Duchess of Cornwall with a place on the Privy Council, an advisory board to the monarch. It was seen as royal recognition of Camilla’s tireless service to the crown and her future as the wife of the King of England.

2022: Camilla Is Named Future Queen Consort

“I think Camilla has transformed Charles,” royal author Penny Junor told Vanity Fair in January. “He is happier with her than he has ever been. She gives him confidence and the support he has so desperately needed throughout his life and never truly found elsewhere.”

The queen recognized this when as part of her Platinum Jubilee message, she stated her hope that Camilla would be named queen consort when Charles becomes king. “When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King,” she wrote. “I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me; and it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”

Their unconventional love story continues.

2022: God Save the King

On September 8, 2022, Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully at Balmoral. After a lifetime in waiting, Charles finally became King Charles III, with his beloved Camilla his queen consort. In his first speech as king, Charles paid tribute to the woman he has loved for over five decades. “This is also a time of change for my family. I count on the loving help of my darling wife, Camilla,” he stated. “In recognition of her own loyal public service since our marriage 17 years ago, she becomes my queen consort. I know she will bring to the demands of her new role the steadfast devotion to duty on which I have come to rely so much.”

On May 6, 2023, this unconventional couple will be coronated king and queen consort at Westminster Abbey.

2022: A Happy Couple 

Camilla gives a rare interview in the June issue of British Vogue, in which she spoke about their marriage.  

“It’s not easy sometimes, but we do always try to have a point in the day when we meet,” she says. “Sometimes it’s like ships passing in the night, but we always sit down together and have a cup of tea and discuss the day. We have a moment.”

After hours of public-facing work, Camilla says the cozy couple recharge by enjoying simple, quiet time together. “It’s lovely to catch up when we have a bit of time,” she explains. “You know when we go away, the nicest thing is that we actually sit and read our books in different corners of the same room. It’s very relaxing because you know you don’t have to make conversation. You just sit and be together.”

2023: The Fallout From Spare

In January 2023, Prince Harry’s blockbuster memoir Spare is released. He is particularly harsh toward his stepmother, claiming that he and his brother, Prince William, begged their father not to marry Camilla.

In the book and subsequent interviews, Prince Harry also refers to Queen Camilla as a “dangerous” person determined to rehabilitate her image. “There was open willingness on both sides to trade information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her on the way to being Queen Consort, there was going to be people or bodies left in the street,” he says on 60 Minutes to host Anderson Cooper. 

In April, Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, hits back indirectly at his stepbrother’s accusations. “I don’t care what anyone says—this wasn’t any sort of endgame,” Parker Bowles said on the podcast The News Agents, “She married the person she loved and this is what happened.”

2023: The Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla 

In April, royal watchers are surprised when the palace releases the official invitation to the coronation set for May 6, 2023. The invitation refers to Camilla simply as “Queen Camilla,” not “Queen Consort Camilla.”

“It made sense to refer to Her Majesty as the Queen Consort in the early months of His Majesty’s reign, to distinguish from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” a royal source explains. “‘Queen Camilla’ is the appropriate title to set against ‘King Charles’ on the invitation. The coronation is an appropriate time to start using ‘Queen Camilla’ in an official capacity. All former Queen Consorts have been known as ‘Queen’ plus their first name.”

Royalists are further surprised by the prominence given to Queen Camilla’s family in the coronation lineup, when it is announced that her grandchildren Freddy Parker Bowles, Gus and Louis Lopes, and great-nephew Arthur Elliot will be her pages. She will be coronated wearing the controversial “Queen Mary’s Crown.”

Now king and queen, it seems Charles and Camilla’s unconventional love story is truly something out of a sweet but scandalous storybook.