Читать книгу The Duchess: The Untold Story – the explosive biography, as seen in the Daily Mail - Penny Junor - Страница 6

For much of the final decade of the twentieth century, one story regularly dominated the news across much of the developed world. It was the unravelling of the marriage between Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the British throne, and his beautiful, charismatic princess, Diana. This real-life drama had all the ingredients of a blockbuster: money, sex and monarchy. Month after month, the public was privy to the betrayals and infidelities, to snippets of life behind Palace doors, even to snatches of intimate, late-night telephone conversations between lovers; it was better than the best fiction and it gripped the millions who followed its every excruciating twist and turn in the pages of the tabloid press.

In the midst of it all was a woman in her forties: Camilla Parker Bowles, the Prince’s long-term mistress, the married woman whom Diana squarely blamed for the failure of her marriage to Charles and for fifteen years of unhappiness. She claimed her husband had been obsessed by Camilla, that he had slept with her the night before their wedding, that they’d connived together to continue their affair behind her back. She called Camilla ‘the enemy’ and ‘the Rottweiler’ and it was she to whom Diana was referring when she famously said in a lengthy interview on British television, ‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.’ That was the ultimate salvo in what was known as ‘The War of the Waleses’. Diana’s mother-in-law, the Queen, finally intervened. She called time and insisted the couple seek an early divorce.

Yet whatever she might have said – and believed – Diana’s claims were false. Camilla was not the sole reason the royal marriage fell apart, and she and Charles certainly did not sleep together the night before his wedding; there were many other factors that explain what went wrong. However, there is no denying that the Prince did always love Camilla – in the way, perhaps, that we all carry a torch for our first love – and when the marriage had irretrievably broken down, he did turn to her for solace. By this time Diana had lovers of her own, but she still obsessed over his reunion with Camilla.

Today, Camilla is known in England and Wales as the Duchess of Cornwall, and in Scotland as the Duchess of Rothesay. She is what the Prince refers to as ‘My darling wife’, and when he’s with her, you can see why. Everything about him, from the grin on his face to the relaxed body language, tells you that he adores her, depends upon her – she is a strong woman, far stronger than he – and that with her in his life he feels complete, I suspect for the first time. They are a compelling and well-matched couple, fired by the same ideals, tickled by the same sense of the absurd. They are friends, companions and soulmates, and in the fullness of time, by whatever name, she will be by his side to support him when he becomes king.

How Camilla came to play such a pivotal role in British history is an extraordinary story of human frailty, of love, loss and great sadness. There was no simple happy ever after. A heavy price was paid for her happiness with Charles and even now it is compromised by forces beyond their control. Like all stories, over the years the facts have been distorted – either by prejudice or ignorance – and I think can bear retelling. As a writer I’ve been close to the protagonists for over thirty-five years, but this is the first time I have focused on Camilla. For more than a year I have followed her on her official engagements in Britain and abroad. I have watched her work, observed the impact she has on the people she meets and listened to her chatting to them; and I’ve chatted to her myself many a time, although I’ve not interviewed her. I’ve also spoken to friends, family and the people who work with her – all of them very special people who have been with her for years. She is utterly charming to everyone, whatever their age, ethnicity, sexual orientation or importance, and invariably has a confidential little aside for them all, making each one of them feel they are special. If she’s being taken past the receptionist behind a desk who she’s not been introduced to, or a cleaning woman, or a kitchen porter, she will stop to say hello. She chats to all the familiar reporters and photographers who follow her, always allows them to get the shot they want, and is happy to pull a face, or to be photographed eating a tricky canapé. This is by no means how every member of the Royal Family behaves. Camilla has such a twinkle in her eye that you feel the world is a better place after a couple of moments in her company. The last member of the Royal Family who had such a compelling effect on the people she met was the Queen Mother.

The Prince of Wales adored the Queen Mother too: he was closer to his beloved grandmother during her lifetime than any other member of his family. And there are some people who think Camilla is rather like her.

In my view, when history comes to judge her, Camilla will not be seen as the woman who nearly brought down the House of Windsor. I think she will be recognised as the woman who shored it up.

The Queen has been loved and admired as a monarch for more than six decades, but in these turbulent times, there are no guarantees for the future. After the death of the Princess of Wales in 1997, Charles was destroyed, his popularity through the floor. Camilla made considerable sacrifices to rehabilitate him, and to support and bolster him – and when they finally married she was sensitive as a stepmother. His sons and heirs, William and Harry, could have badly lost their way. There was no certainty they would turn into such well-grounded, responsible, likeable young men, or that they would embrace their unenviable destiny. She could have driven a wedge between father and sons. Instead she was the glue that has kept them together. Those were dark and dangerous times for the institution and for the family, but they have come through them, and so long as Britain continues to want a monarchy, its future will be in safe hands.

Camilla will never be universally loved because of the early scandal. Some people find adultery unacceptable in any circumstances, while others are so loyal to Diana’s memory that they will not entertain the possibility that she had any of the frailties that make us human. But fortunately most people are more forgiving and more open-minded. Camilla came into Charles’s broken marriage and gave him something to live for when he was in despair. It obviously wasn’t an ideal scenario, but the Prince wasn’t the first person to have made a mistake in marrying the wrong woman, and he won’t be the last. He tried hard to make the Princess happy, to make their marriage work – harder, I suspect, than many people in the same situation would do – but he failed and he will live with that sense of failure for the rest of his life. Yet, for the most part, the media and the public were unforgiving.

Camilla is warm, she’s funny, she’s friendly, and she’s fun to be with. When things go pear-shaped, she doesn’t panic or allow others to panic around her. Her first instinct is to laugh, and that has been her saving grace throughout all the years of heartache. She’s also a terrible giggler. When you see that twinkle in her deep blue eyes, you know she’ll be up for anything. Equally, she’s the sort of woman whom you know has real depth underneath the froth and the laughter, and if you were in a jam you would want her with you because you know she would calmly cope.

She has compassion too, but she can be tough – some would say ruthless – when needs be. She is nobody’s fool and won’t be pushed around by anyone. That said, she is not ambitious, she’s not moody or temperamental – although the eyes can flash and she can get cross – and she’s finely attuned to other people and their needs, in a way that her husband is not. And perhaps most endearing of all is that her family is paramount. She put them through hell because of her relationship with the Prince and now she’s making amends.

Her sister, Annabel, eighteen months younger, is very different in character but probably her closest friend and confidante. They did everything together as children and although they have different friends, they speak on the phone three times a week as they always have done; they still holiday together and still see one another regularly. Likewise, her two children, Tom and Laura, who are both married with small children of their own, are all very close and very protective of one another. Camilla is particularly close to her daughter, Laura – and Laura is the only person she’s afraid of. She utterly dotes on her five grandchildren and sets aside most weekends for them, as well as taking regular holidays in Devon and Scotland. She has kept the house in the country that she had before she married the Prince and goes there as often as she can, and she is joined there by her family. She cooks, she gardens, she reads, she relaxes, preferring the normality of her old home to the formality of the Prince’s house half an hour away. Often the Prince quietly joins her. Normality is not something he has had much experience of in his life.

Spend two minutes with Camilla in the flesh and you will understand what Charles sees in her. But why he walked away from Diana and into her arms, why he risked everything, even the institution of monarchy, to have her in his life, is more complex.

The stammering George VI was unprepared and ill-equipped to be king when he was thrust into the role by his brother’s abdication in 1936. By good fortune he had a strong wife, Charles’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. Without her, Bertie, as he was known, could never have done the job. As it was, he died at the age of fifty-six, and she would claim it was the stress of the job that killed him. He was a good and popular king and left the monarchy in a healthy condition for his daughter, who was just twenty-five when he died. Intellectually, Charles will be the best prepared heir who has ever ascended the throne – he is cultured, well-informed, well-travelled, well-read, and he knows more about how people live and work in Britain than most politicians. He has spent the last forty years heavily involved in everything from architecture and inner city deprivation to interfaith dialogue, the rural economy and conservation. He’s not afraid to put his head above the parapet if he thinks he can be of use. But emotionally he is less robust. She will give him the strength and the confidence to do the job.

She has already transformed him, as everyone can plainly see. Before she came into his life in the dying days of his marriage, he was lonely, depressed and angst-ridden, under-appreciated for his tireless charity work, and widely despised for his infidelity. Today he is happy, laughing and fulfilled. That makes him a better prince, a better father and a much more productive and popular figure. And when the time comes, it will make him a confident, capable and I believe much-loved king. Without her, there might have been a very different outcome.

But more than that. To the surprise of everyone who knew her before she married the Prince of Wales, Camilla has turned into a formidable worker and a very serious advocate for women, unafraid to put her name to issues like rape, sexual violence and domestic abuse. She is also tackling the widespread problem of illiteracy and encouraging people of all ages to read and enjoy books – something she herself has done since childhood. The advantage of coming to the role later in life is that she has nothing to prove. She is a grandmother, she has been around the block, she is not jostling to make her mark in the world, to look thirty years younger, or to steal the limelight, so nobody feels threatened or intimidated by her. She is happy to be herself, and if she can make a difference here and there to people’s lives, so much the better. Her calmness, warmth, good humour and approachability – and her ability to be very tough when the occasion demands – are everything the nation could want in the uncertain years that will follow the death of such a popular and long-reigning Queen.