Making the most of their marriage! After 17 years of wedded bliss, Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla have amassed a few tricks to keep their spark alive.
“It’s not easy sometimes, but we do always try to have a point in the day when we meet,” the Duchess of Cornwall, 74, told British Vogue in a rare interview published on Saturday, June 18. “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.”
She continued: “It’s lovely to catch up when we have a bit of time. 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.”
While Camilla and the Prince of Wales, 73, bonded in their youths, they eventually went on to marry other people. Camilla, for her part, went on to marry Andrew Parker Bowles, with whom she shares son Tom and daughter Laura. Amid their 1995 divorce, she reconnected with Charles — who was going through his own separation from Princess Diana. (Charles and Diana, who died in 1997, shared sons Prince William and Prince Harry.) The public’s adoration for the late Princess of Wales often impacted The Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room founder and her role in the royal family after she wed Charles in 2005.
“It’s not easy,” Camilla told the magazine in the Saturday profile. “I was scrutinized for such a long time that you just have to find a way to live with it. Nobody likes to be looked at all the time and, you know, criticized … 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.”
While Camilla never assumed the title of Princess of Wales out of respect for Diana’s legacy, there is a special one she is set to inherit once Charles ascends the throne.
“When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me,” Queen Elizabeth II wrote in a February statement, celebrating her Platinum Jubilee. “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.”
Buckingham Palace never previously announced Camilla’s title when Charles becomes king before the 96-year-old monarch’s statement. (The queen’s husband, Prince Philip, was referred to as Prince Consort ahead of his April 2021 death.)
“We are deeply conscious of the honor represented by my mother’s wish. As we have sought together to serve and support Her Majesty and the people of our communities, my darling wife has been my own steadfast support throughout,” Charles and Camilla wrote in a joint statement at the time.
In addition to the pair’s regal duties, Camilla is a doting grandmother to her children’s five little ones. (She is also a grandmother figure to Charles’ grandchildren: Prince George, 8, Princess Charlotte, 7, Prince Louis, 4, Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 12 months.)
“You know the nice thing about being a grandmother is that you can spoil them occasionally, give them more of the things that their parents forbid them to have,” Camilla jokingly told British Vogue. “One’s at a school very near my house, so when I am in Wiltshire and her parents are away, I can nip over and pick her up and take her home. The girls are beginning to get into clothes and makeup and, you know, it’s rather frightening when you see them, coming out with pierced ears and a lot of new make-up and funny-colored hair and stuff.”
