Queen Camilla's iconic one-liner to King Charles that led to royal romance

21 February 2024 , 23:03

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Charles and Camilla are thought to have met at a polo match (Image: Getty Images)

Queen Camilla is reputed to have hit King Charles with an iconic one-liner that led to their relationship.

The pair first met around mid-1971, with some claims it was at a polo match. It was there she supposedly told him: “You know my great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather’s mistress, so how about it?”

The now 76-year-old consort had seen her relationship with former Guards officer Andrew Parker Bowles come to an end the previous year - though their divorce wouldn't be finalised until 1995.

Parker Bowles had started courting Charles' sister Princess Anne, and while the now-King and Queen belonged to the same social circle, they had not formally met beforehand. There are some suggestions the pair actually first spoke at the home of their friend Lucía Santa Cruz, who formally introduced them, around the same time.

Either way, they became friends before a romantic relationship blossomed, and this was well-known among friends. They were regularly seen at polo matches at Smith's Lawn in Windsor Great Park - but the relationship was put on hold and then ended after Charles traveled overseas to join the Royal Navy in early 1973.

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Charles talking to Camilla at a polo match in Cirencester Park in July 1975 (REX/Shutterstock)

It is alleged The Queen Mother, among others, did not approve of Camilla and wanted Charles to marry one of the Spencer family granddaughters of her close friend Lady Fermoy. Multiple royal biographers agreed he would not have been given permission to marry Camilla as she was deemed as unsuitable as a consort.

Charles' cousin and godmother Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, said in 2005: "With hindsight, you can say that Charles should have married Camilla when he first had the chance. They were ideally suited, we know that now. But it wasn't possible."

However, the pair remained friends and after Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1979, Charles reportedly sought comfort in Camilla. Rumours suggested they had then rekindled their relationship.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the balcony of Buckingham Palace following the Coronation (Getty Images)

Queen Camilla (Getty Images)

But Charles soon became an item with Lady Diana Spencer, and they married in 1981. They separated in 1992. In recordings Princess Diana made for author Andrew Morton's book Diana: Her True Story, she recalled calling Camilla out for her affair with Charles. "I was terrified of her...I said, 'I know what's going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that,'" Diana said.

This was followed by the Camillagate tape scandal in 1993, when a phone call between Charles and Camilla was secretly recorded and transcripts published in the press. In 1994, Charles told Jonathan Dimbleby: "Mrs. Parker Bowles is a great friend of mine...a friend for a very long time. She will continue to be a friend for a very long time."

But he went on to admit that the pair had rekindled their romance after his marriage to Diana had "irretrievably broken down" in 1986. Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance together in 1999 and finally married in April 2005.

Ryan Merrifield