RICHARD KAY: After Camilla’s turbulent journey, the title of Queen is a fitting reward for her years of loyalty and devotion
So now it’s official. As invitations to May’s Coronation start dropping on to doormats in the next few days, the last pretence will have vanished.
No longer merely Queen Consort, the former Mrs Parker Bowles will be elevated to the style Queen Camilla. And, with a stroke of the calligrapher’s pen, the final vestige of the divorcee’s second hand status will be no more than a footnote in royal history.
The lavishly decorated Coronation invitations revealed yesterday, hand-painted in watercolour and gouache, are the first time she has been formally gazetted as Queen without the qualification of ‘consort’.
To some this will be seen as the natural and rightful progression of a woman whose devotion and loyalty to her husband since their 2005 Windsor Castle wedding has been unsparing. Others, however, may marvel at the extraordinary upward trajectory of the woman condemned by the late Princess Diana as the third person in her marriage.
It is why, on the momentous day next month when all eyes will be drawn to the sacred rituals and pageantry as King Charles III is crowned, many will be equally gripped by the presence of the blonde figure at his side.
No longer merely Queen Consort, the former Mrs Parker Bowles will be elevated to the style Queen Camilla
Pictured: Prince Charles chats to Camilla Parker-Bowles at a polo match, circa 1972
Of course, it has been a painful and turbulent journey for the former Army officer’s wife: From mistress of the heir to the throne to his indispensable wife and now to his Queen.
Just over a year ago the one remaining stumbling block that might have prevented such a moment disappeared when the late Queen Elizabeth bestowed her approval by expressing her ‘sincere wish’ that her son’s wife should be fully acknowledged as Queen when Charles acceded to the throne.
At the time it was a game-changer. Years of unease – anxiety even – at how a Queen Camilla might destabilise the monarchy were instantly set aside. If the late Queen – who once cuttingly observed of Camilla that she looked ‘rather used’ – could not only accept her but embrace her as the future, so the argument went, then everyone else should too.
In the seven months since Charles succeeded his mother, Camilla has been an ever-present and reassuring companion without putting a foot wrong. In today’s Royal Family, mired in controversy on so many fronts, that in itself is a significant achievement.
Even so, there still remained a nervousness among courtiers about how to properly assimilate the woman whom some fans of the monarchy will never forgive for usurping Diana’s place in the royal marriage.
But overcoming this last obstacle ahead of the Coronation shows Buckingham Palace at its most nimble. As one old Palace hand told me: ‘It was about grasping the nettle and settling this debate about her status once and for all.
‘There is admiration for her around the country, affection even, which may not be universal but it has a permanence and solidity about it.’
It was clever strategy to slip Camilla’s status among other positive news about the role of Prince George, alongside Camilla’s grandsons, Gus, Louis and Freddy as the King and Queen’s pages of honour for the May 6 ceremony.
To some this will be seen as the natural and rightful progression of a woman whose devotion and loyalty to her husband since their 2005 Windsor Castle wedding has been unsparing
This Sunday will mark the King and Queen Consort’s 18th wedding anniversary, a landmark they might once have celebrated with gusto. But they will be focused on the historic occasion coming up.
The official Coronation photograph of the King and Queen, which was also released yesterday, displays a couple supremely at ease not just with each other, but also with their situation.
The smiles on their lips, their relaxed demeanour and semi-formality – Charles in typical pose with one hand thrust into a suit pocket – show us a royal couple at their most self-assured despite the grandeur of the Buckingham Palace Blue Drawing Room backdrop.
Here at last they are as equals, something that seemed an unrealistic and remote prospect not many years ago. As man and wife they have been partners and it will be as partners that they approach this next crossroads in their life as crowned King and Queen.
It has been a necessarily sedate progress thus far. It had to be. There was the lengthy mourning period for the late Queen Elizabeth and the uncertainty of the new world that Charles and Camilla occupied.
Continuing to refer to her as Queen Consort, meanwhile, seemed eminently sensible when memories of Charles’s mother, who was always just the Queen, were so strong.
But, with a clear road now ahead of them, observers will search this portrait for clues not just about their state of mind but also about the long-time security of the monarchy as an institution.
Perhaps its most telling detail is the most obvious: As they prepare for the Coronation, Charles and Camilla are not just blissfully happy but brimming with confidence.
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