Queen Camilla’s ‘cruel’ letter to King Charles that ‘broke his heart’

Queen Camilla and King Charles may be blissfully married now but in their early years of courting, they faced much heartbreak. The King and Queen had initially met in their 20s, before their respective first marriages. Charles and Camilla were in a relationship with the then-Prince said to be completely smitten with the debutante. But the couple were forced to take a break when 24-year-old Charles went on a tour with the Royal Navy.

And during his time away he received a ‘cruel’ letter from Camilla. She wrote to Charles to tell him that she had accepted a wedding proposal from Andrew Parker Bowles, a Guards officer who had been her on-off boyfriend since the late 1960s. Royal author Penny Junor wrote about the letter in her book about Camilla, The Duchess: The Untold Story, revealing: “She wrote to Charles herself to tell him. It broke his heart.”

The couple then went their separate ways, both getting married and having children of their own, with Charles famously marrying a shy 20-year-old Princess Diana in 1981 when he was 32. Ms Juror also stated that the devastated prince shared his heartbreak over the letter to his friends and family. “He fired off anguished letters to his nearest and dearest,” she wrote. “It seemed to him particularly ‘cruel’, he wrote in one letter, that after ‘such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship’s fate had decreed that it should only last a mere six months.”

Like Charles, Camilla went onto have two children with her husband and Charles was named one of the godfathers to son Tom. After Camilla and Andrew divorced after 21 years of marriage, Charles and Camilla were finally able to reunite. The now King and Queen announced their own engagement in February 2005. They tied the knot in a civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall, on 9 April 2005, followed by a reception hosted by the Queen and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle.

While the Queen, as head of state, didn’t attend the wedding as it was the nuptials of two divorced individuals, she was there during the ceremony and supported the union. Speaking to Guides for Brides, former royal butler Grant Harrold, revealed that the monarch even gave a comical speech at the newlywed couple’s reception. Mr Harrold said: “The biggest misconception about the wedding is that the Queen didn’t enjoy it or wasn’t supportive, it’s complete nonsense. There was talk about whether she would attend the service but her appearance at the reception was a joyful one.

“Her attendance and speech would have been seen as an olive branch to Charles and Camilla – her blessing of the marriage. The royals don’t do things lightly and she would have not attended if she hadn’t been happy to. “I remember walking to St George’s Hall for the reception, where they had drinks. The Queen had not attended the actual service but she gave a speech at the reception, which was seen as a big sign of her approval to the marriage.”