Squiz Shortcuts - Queen Camilla

Your Shortcut to Queen Camilla

In exciting news for royal watchers, it's been confirmed that King Charles and Queen Camilla will visit Australia this year. We already know a lot about the King, but in this Squiz Shortcut, we’ll take a look at:

• Queen Camilla’s life

• how she won over the British people

• and why her role in the monarchy is now more important than ever.

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Squiz the Shortcut

When are the King and Queen heading Down Under?
They’ll be here in October, so pretty soon. It’s good news for royal watchers because King Charles has been receiving treatment for cancer, so there was some doubt about whether he’d be able to make the trip.

Queen Camilla’s been doing a lot lately…
She sure has. With several key members of King Charles’ “slimmed-down” monarchy out of action due to illness or scandal, the Queen (who turned 77yo this week) has taken a leading role in steering the Royal Family through a tricky time. 

Remind me, what’s been happening?
King Charles and Princess Kate are both receiving treatment for cancer - which has also meant reduced duties for Prince William. Prince Andrew was forced to retire early in disgrace over his association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. And Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have stepped away from royal duties and moved to the US.

That’s a lot of royals down…
Yep, and even Princess Anne - who’s known to be the “hardest-working royal” - has been sidelined for the past few weeks after a horse accident… But through all of this, Queen Camilla has remained stoic and continued fronting up to events and waving the royal flag. 

Her public approval rating has had quite a turnaround…
Yes... Opinion polls show she has a 50% positive approval rating with the British public - which is up by 10% since 2019. It’s still a long way from Will and Kate, who rate near 70%, but as she was once described as “the most hated woman in Britain”, she had quite a lot of ground to make up…

Remind me, why was that?
If we rewind back to the mid-1990s, it was revealed that Camilla had been in a long-time romantic affair with Prince Charles (who’s now of course King Charles) when he was still married to Princess Diana… 

Scandalous. Tell me everything…
Reports say Camilla and Prince Charles met at the polo back in 1970 when she was 24yo. They dated for a while, but according to royal commentators, the Palace thought he was too young to get married and Camilla wasn’t considered aristocratic enough. 

So they found other people and lived happily ever after?
Not quite... Charles went off to do military service and Camilla married an army officer named Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973. They had 2 children - Tom (born in 1974) and Laura (born in ‘78), and they asked their good friend the Prince to be godfather to little Tom…

So Charles and Camilla stayed friends?
Right, they never really left each other’s circles. And then Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 - that ceremony was one of the largest televised events in history, with a worldwide audience of 750 million people. 

Sounds like a lot of people were invested in that marriage…
That’s putting it mildly. The British people - and others all around the world - loved the young, beautiful Diana, who was known as “the people’s princess”. Then she and Charles had their 2 boys, William and Harry, and it all looked gorgeous in photos, but we know now that the marriage was far from a magazine cover because Charles never stopped loving Camilla, and both he and Diana ended up having affairs. 

Did they admit to the affairs?
Yep. Then both couples got divorced, and Camilla’s reputation divebombed. She was deeply unpopular with the British public, as was Charles, particularly after Diana tragically died in a car crash in 1997. 

It would take a very thick-skinned person to cope with that…
Right. So Camilla kept her head down and continued with her charity work until Charles finally put a ring on it in 2005, and she was given the title of Duchess of Cornwall. And so began a new phase of her life as a working royal. 

How did she take to royal duties?
Royal watchers say Camilla has a lot of natural charm and took to life as a working royal with ease and a strong work ethic. Reports say the more she circulated, the more the public’s opinion of her began to shift. 

What did the late Queen Elizabeth make of her?
Commentators say her work ethic was the one thing that won over the late Queen. Also, Camilla shared her love of dogs and horses, so she gave her blessing for Camilla to be named Queen Consort when Charles would eventually become King. 

The Coronation was last year - how’s it all going?
Yes, the Coronation was in May 2023, after Queen Elizabeth died in 2022 - and Camilla has been known as Queen Camilla ever since. And from the time she put on the crown, she’s been busy with royal duties of her own, her ongoing charity work, as well as picking up additional events for the King, Kate and William…

What causes does she support?
She’s patron of more than 100 charities hand-chosen in fields meaningful to her. They include animal charities, women’s welfare and health - particularly prevention of bone disease, which her mother and grandmother both died from. Another cause close to her heart is promoting literacy - she even has a podcast, The Queen’s Reading Room, where she recommends books. She’s a big Harry Potter fan but says she’s not the best at doing voices when reading to her grandkids…

How many grandchildren does she have?
She’s got 5 grandkids and 5 step-grandkids, so her personal life is pretty busy too. She sees a lot of her children, Laura - an art curator and Tom - a food writer and critic who you might’ve seen on Masterchef UK. Reports say she’s a fun grandma. She was photographed having a boogie with a couple of her grandkids at an ABBA gig last year, and she apparently does Wordle every day and compares results with at least one granddaughter by text. 

Could it be just clever PR?
Prince Harry reckons it is. He wrote in his memoir Spare that the Queen’s image turnaround was the result of a carefully constructed PR campaign. 

But the love story between the King and Queen is real…
The thing even Harry can’t deny is Camilla’s unflinching devotion to Charles. She’s been there for him for more than 50 years - and that, coupled with her very British “keep calm and carry on” attitude has seen her go from an outcast to the Royal Family’s MVP.

Newsmakers on the people behind the headlines

Part 2 of our Newsmakers short series is here. This time, Kate Watson sits down with Chris Ulhmann, the former political editor at the ABC and Nine, and now a columnist for The Australian. He’s a deep thinker with decades of experience observing our political leaders here and abroad, and in this chat, they get into what he believes is worth fighting for. Dive into the newsletter, listen to the chat, or watch it on YouTube.

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