Charles and Camilla first met in the early 1970s. Their paths soon split. Camilla married Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973, and Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. But their bond never fully disappeared.
In 1994, Charles admitted in a television interview that he had been unfaithful once his marriage had broken down. Camilla divorced her husband in 1995. Then, in August 1997, Diana died in Paris. In the wave of national grief that followed, Camilla became one of the most criticised women in Britain.
For Charles, the question was how to bring Camilla into public life without a public backlash. The answer was a carefully planned moment.
On 28 January 1999, Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot, celebrated her 50th birthday at the Ritz Hotel in London. Charles attended. The press had been tipped off, and hundreds of photographers gathered outside on the street.
Late that evening, Charles and Camilla walked out of the hotel together. For a few seconds, they were side by side in front of the cameras, and the street flashed white with light. Then it was over. The press nicknamed the plan Operation PB, and it was widely credited to Charles’s aide Mark Bolland.
The next morning, the photographs were everywhere. Public reaction was mixed, but calmer than many had feared. The strategy had worked, and step by step Camilla was brought into royal life.
In 2000, she and the Queen were seen at the same event for the first time. In February 2005, Charles and Camilla announced their engagement, and they married on 9 April 2005 at Windsor.
In 2022, Queen Elizabeth II publicly said it was her sincere wish that Camilla would be known as Queen Consort. On 6 May 2023, Camilla was crowned Queen beside King Charles III at Westminster Abbey.
It was a long way from a few nervous seconds on a London pavement, the night a hidden love story finally stepped into the light.