[West Ender]

"This is an over-privileged, spoilt, brat, who had the chance to marry Camilla Shand when they were both single, but wouldn't make up his mind. "


He hesitated because Camilla had a "past". Unlike his great-uncle, another spoilt brat who didn't want the responsibility that privilege entails and said, figuratively, "Sod that", Charles didn't dare to defy his family or risk his succession. She, miffed, went straight off and married Andrew P B who had been chasing her for some time, but always maintained her arrangement with Charles.

Her attitude to the situation, and his, is summed up in her well-known opening gambit to him when they first met, "Your great great grandfather and my great grandmother were lovers. How about it?" Throughout history, as both of them well knew, it had been customary for royal males to be serial philanderers and royal females to accept the situation. Camilla was complicit in Charles' wooing of Diana Spencer. Both thought that here was a young woman who would serve her purpose admirably and settle down to the life of compliant consort and mother of the future sovereign. Unfortunately for them, Diana would neither accept nor comply and the plan to carry on their affair away from public eyes was shattered.

Had Camilla, before her first marriage, been "unsullied" the situation might have been different. It is possible, however, that the role of Royal Mistress was a more inviting prospect to her than Royal Bride; most of the privilege with none of the responsibility.

Diana's resistance to the plot meant that the affair was thrust into the spotlight. It was impossible to carry on as before, the Press knew the "secret" and made the most of it. In the last 8 years Charles' staff have carried out a magnificent public relations excercise and have gradually persuaded a largely antipathetic Public into acceptance of Camilla as his one, great love, sweeping the intervening events neatly under the priceless Persian rug.

You are quite right, Pendy, if this were a common citizen it would not matter a damn. That he is the highly privileged heir to the throne, with all the responsibilities this should entail, alters the case. I am sure the marriage will work, this pair have acheived what they dared not, or cared not, to do 30 years ago. The Great British Public will accept the future Queen Camilla wholeheartedly. The Royal manipulation machinery has already seen to that.