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Long to reign over us: how did Queen Elizabeth II survive seven decades of dizzying change?
When Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952, she could barely have conceived the currents – imperial retreat, multiculturalism, de-industrialiation – that would transform the nation during her reign. On the centenary of the Queen’s birth, David Cannadine explores how she navigated seven decades of dizzying change
When I was born in September 1950, King George VI had just over a year to live. I have no memory of him or his reign, and my first royal recollection was of the coronation of the second Queen Elizabeth – or, more precisely, of images of her state coach and horses, which I cut out of a souvenir magazine. My parents did not own a television set, and did not know anyone who did, so it was only in 2012, the year of Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee, that I watched the remastered version of the original coronation broadcast from Westminster Abbey. Richard Dimbleby’s reverential commentary, suffused with ardour and optimism, did indeed belong to that earlier time. When the Queen celebrated her platinum jubilee in 2022, few people in the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth could remember when she had not been on the throne. Like Queen Victoria, Elizabeth II had become part of what Victoria’s biographer Lytton Strachey called the “indissoluble” scheme of things, which made it impossible for many people to imagine the world without her. Apart from just over a year at the beginning, and (thus far) four years at the end, my own life has coincided exactly with the 70 years of her reign. I was no part of her life, and never met her, but she was certainly a part of mine, as she was of millions of people in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and far beyond. Joining Shakespeare I never imagined it would one day fall to me to tell Queen Elizabeth’s life story, but in 2014 I was appointed editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and it seemed likely that the Queen would die on my watch. The convention established for the ODNB’s predecessor, the original Dictionary of National Biography, was that when the monarch died, the editor would contribute the entry on him or her, and it duly fell to me to write the life of Elizabeth II. I did so in two forms: as a short book of 50,000 words, published late in 2025 by Oxford University Press; and as her entry in the ODNB, available online from April this year, which was cut to 35,000 words, putting the late Queen in the company of her namesake Queen Elizabeth I, along with Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell, Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. The ODNB entry is a tightly written biography, while the longer book historicises the Queen by setting her more fully in the context of her times. Read more | Buckingham Palace was the height of royal power – so why did Queen Victoria and Albert hate it? Producing these two different versions reminded me how biographers and historians take different approaches when writing individual lives. Some of the most outstanding recent biographies have been by historians – among them Ian Kershaw on Hitler, Jonathan Steinberg on Bismarck and Diarmaid MacCulloch on Thomas Cromwell – but it is a genre about which many scholars remain sceptical. The political and constitutional historian Geoffrey Elton spent his life determined not to produce a biography of Thomas Cromwell, even though he greatly admired him; and in writing his life of Hitler, Ian Kershaw noted that biography ran the risk of “over-emphasising the role of the individual in shaping and determining events”, and “ignoring or playing down the social and political context in which those actions took place”. These risks most certainly apply to biographies of monarchs, though they are less acute when dealing with kings and queens who proactively make history. But sovereigns who reign reactively, rather than rule proactively, create serious expositional challenges, anticipated by Karl Marx, when he observed that “men [and women] make their own histories, but they do not do so under circumstances of their own choosing”. Elizabeth II was just such a circumscribed monarch, living out her life against trends and trajectories in many ways far from friendly. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-120520595webready-f7c08c2-e1776683608167.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows a person seated at a table with a BBC microphone in front of them, wearing a light blouse and a pearl necklace while holding a sheet of paper." title="In a speech broadcast to mark her 21st birthday – while she was touring South Africa – Princess Elizabeth pledged herself to a life of duty (Image by Getty Images)" /> Decline and fall One indication of this hostile 20th-century environment is that many monarchies were history’s victims rather than its victors. By the end of the First World War, the great-power thrones of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany had disappeared. The Second World War led to a further royal conflagration, as the Yugoslavian, Italian, Bulgarian and Romanian crowns were subsequently abolished, while the survival of the Japanese emperor was the exception that proved the rule. Thereafter the king of Egypt was driven out, the king of Iraq was murdered; Libya, Afghanistan, Greece, Abyssinia and Iran dispensed with their sovereigns, and only the return of a Spanish monarch in 1975 bucked that trend. This widespread royal retreat was accompanied by imperial dissolution, as the maritime empires of Portugal, Belgium the Netherlands and France disappeared during the second half of the 20th century. And so did the British empire, which had been the biggest of them all. Kipling had anticipated this retreat at Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in 1897, when his poem Recessional stressed the ephemerality of empire and the transience of global dominion. Between the partition of India and the return of Hong Kong to China 50 years later, the British empire went into full recessional mode. Elizabeth’s father, George VI, was the last British monarch to be Emperor of India, and she ‘gave away’ even more territory than George III. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-613457692webready-3319b3d-e1776682784658.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white portrait shows six people in formal ceremonial dress. At the centre stand a man in a decorated military uniform and a woman in a gown with a long train and veil. Two seated figures and two standing figures wear military uniforms with medals or elegant gowns and jewellery. Draped curtains and a carpeted floor form the backdrop." title="A family portrait from the wedding day of Elizabeth II’s parents, 26 April 1923. (From l to r): the Earl and Countess of Strathmore, the Duchess and Duke of York (the future Queen Mother and George VI) and Queen Mary and George V (Image by Getty Images)" /> A royal rebranding Such was the broader, confining global context against which Princess Elizabeth, born in 1926 as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, lived out her life. One further indication of these changing and challenging times was that only one of her parents was royal. Before the First World War, Europe’s ruling houses constituted an international, inter-connected elite, as exemplified by Queen Victoria’s children, most of whom wed their continental (especially German) relatives. But the First World War, which ranged the British and German royal dynasties against each other, put an end to that, and in 1917 George V rebranded the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as the House of Windsor, and decreed that his descendants might select marriage partners from among British families, by which he meant members of the aristocracy. Read more | The young Elizabeth II: life before she was Queen The Duke of York duly wed Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, daughter of the Scottish grandee the Earl of Strathmore, which meant Princess Elizabeth was only ‘semi-royal’, whereas both the parents of Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece, whom she would later marry, were royalty. Philip may have belonged to the rootless and impoverished interwar diaspora of minor princelings, but his lineage was grander than Princess Elizabeth’s. At the time of her birth, there was no realistic likelihood Elizabeth would become the queen regnant of the United Kingdom. Like all Europe’s remaining royal houses, the British monarchy was patriarchal and patrilineal, which meant that if the Duke and Duchess of York produced a son, he would immediately leapfrog his elder sister and become first in the line of succession. And Princess Elizabeth’s uncle, the Prince of Wales, who would accede to the throne on the death of his father, George V, might yet marry and father a boy who would eventually follow him as king. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-514080420webready-b1c182a-e1776682680633.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows two people standing together: one wearing a light dress with a brooch and a fur‑trimmed hat, the other in a dark suit with a patterned tie, light vest, and a flower pinned to the lapel. A stone wall with a metal window grille is behind them." title="The former Edward VIII marries Wallis Simpson in June 1937 after abdicating the throne. In doing so, says David Cannadine, he put “self and love before service and duty” (Image by Getty Images)" /> This meant there was every initial expectation that Princess Elizabeth would live out her life as a minor member of the royal family, marrying a British aristocratic landowner, doing good works in the local community, and enjoying the company of her horses and dogs. But she would not be the first member of the British royal family in modern times to inherit the throne unexpectedly. The same had been true of Victoria, of George V, and of her father, George VI. All three, like Elizabeth, were unanticipated monarchs who became successful sovereigns – as she would do to an even greater extent. This unexpected turn in Elizabeth’s life took place in 1936, when she was 10 years old. Her uncle, who had succeeded George V as Edward VIII, abdicated the throne to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, putting self and love before service and duty. But this obliged Elizabeth’s father to put service and duty before self and love, by becoming the sovereign, as George VI, he had never wanted to be. Having sired no son, this meant his elder daughter became heiress presumptive, and she fully assimilated her parents’ ethos of duty and service. In 1947, on her 21st birthday, when she was accompanying her parents on a tour of South Africa, Princess Elizabeth delivered a broadcast, pledging her life, “whether it be long or short”, to the service of the empire and Commonwealth, and it was a pledge she honoured and kept all her life. But that was not the only reason why 1947 was so important a year. India became independent, and was partitioned, portending the end of the British empire and its evolution into the voluntary community of association known as the Commonwealth. That same year, Elizabeth wed Prince Philip, beginning a more than 70-year union that would be perhaps the greatest royal marriage in history. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-613465636webready-d118ece-e1776682342956.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows a bride in a lace wedding gown, tiara, and pearl jewellery holding a bouquet, smiling at a man in a formal military uniform with medals. Dark curtains form the background." title="Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten on their wedding day, 20 November 1947. Their 73-year union was, writes David Cannadine, “perhaps the greatest royal marriage in history” (Image by Getty Images)" /> British revolution Thereafter there were many milestones in Elizabeth’s long life and reign, extending across an astonishing 70 years. Here are just a few of them. 1952: the death of her father, her accession as the second Queen Elizabeth, and the widespread belief that a ‘new Elizabethan age’ had dawned. (Due to Britain’s diminishing status in the world, that belief would prove to be mistaken.) 1960: Harold Macmillan’s ‘wind of change speech’ delivered in South Africa, portending the end of what remained of the British empire. 1964: the advent of the Queen’s first Labour government, led by Harold Wilson. 1965: Winston Churchill’s state funeral, both the last rites of the great man and a requiem for Britain as a great power. 1979: Margaret Thatcher took office, as the Queen’s first female prime minister. 1997: the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, delivered a jolt to the monarchy and the nation. 1999: the Queen opened devolved legislatures in Wales and Scotland. 2011: she visited Ireland and expressed sympathy for “those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past”. 2016: 43 years after Britain joined the EEC, an EU Referendum ended in Brexit. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-1450414706webready-b13781c-e1776682235671.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows a group of formally dressed people standing on steps outside a building. Some wear military uniforms, others fur coats or ceremonial robes. One naval officer salutes while others hold programs." title="The State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill" /> Significantly, none of these events were initiated by Elizabeth II, but she had to adapt to all of them. That is what monarchs who reign but not rule must do. At the same time, there were many milestones in her own life, as she celebrated a unique grand slam of four jubilees. 1977: her silver jubilee (25 years) – not yet even halfway through the Queen’s long reign, taking place during James Callaghan’s premiership, nearing the end of a difficult decade. 2002: her golden jubilee (50 years) – initially anxious, following the dismal 1990s and the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother, but turning out to be an unexpectedly successful amalgam of royal tradition and Blairite ‘cool Britannia’. 2012: her diamond jubilee (60 years) – perhaps the happiest of them all, following the marriage of William and Kate Middleton, preceding the successful opening of the London Olympics, and instantiating the Queen’s own hard-won apotheosis. 2022: her platinum jubilee (70 years) – inescapably elegiac, as the Queen was largely absent from the celebrations, and her last years had been hard, with Covid, the death of Prince Philip and the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to the US. But she made a final appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, where she had first been glimpsed as a baby in her mother’s arms 95 years before. The Queen’s long reign meant her closest relatives were obliged to adapt in unprecedented ways. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother became a dowager queen for half a century. Prince Philip gave up a promising naval career and subordinated his life to supporting hers. Prince Charles had to wait until his early 70s before he became king. Princess Margaret, the Queen’s younger sister, found neither personal happiness nor a fulfilling public role. In different ways, this must have been difficult for all four of them. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-3335882webready-e52ecc4-e1776682455805.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black‑and‑white photograph shows a woman in a light outfit, hat, gloves, and pearls holding a bouquet as she interacts with a crowd of adults and children waving flags." title="The Queen meets children during her silver jubilee celebrations, 1977. Despite the smiles, Britain was suffering a crisis of confidence at this point in her reign (Image by Getty Images)" /> Unlike their parents, but like their Aunt Margaret, three of the Queen’s children – the Prince of Wales, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew – divorced, which meant the (dysfunctional) royal family increasingly became a scandal-ridden soap opera. Prince Andrew’s excessive sense of entitlement, and his close friendship with the convicted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, were deplorable displays of bad behaviour and demonstrated still more deplorable and damaging lapses of judgment. The Duke of Sussex denounced his father in public for being cold and aloof, while his wife branded members of the royal family as uncaring, unsympathetic and racist. “Recollections may vary,” was the Queen’s response. As someone who belonged to the generation that had gone through the Second World War, she was ill at ease with the emotional incontinence that had become widespread during the closing decades of her reign. Total transformation During her 70 years on the throne, Britain changed significantly. In the early 1950s, the traditional aristocracy still counted in the corridors of power, the middle classes were closely linked to the empire, the military and the civil service, and working-class men were overwhelmingly employed in such heavy industries as coal mining, steel making and ship building. Except for the Queen, women knew their (subordinate) place, social mobility was limited, higher education was restricted to a minority, Britain was, to a large extent, ethnically homogeneous, the Church of England was a significant force, and the Victorian moral code still prevailed. Read more | The royal family and their right to privacy: who should have access to the records? But by the end of the Queen’s reign, the aristocracy was no longer the power elite, the middle class sought alternative employment, and the de-industrialisation of Britain meant most men no longer undertook hard manual labour. Rising standards of living and the expansion of universities made the country a more mobile and less deferential society, women occupied prominent positions in public and professional life, the influence of the Church of England had declined, the Victorian moral code had been dismantled, and the influx of immigrants from the dissolving empire meant Britain became an increasingly multi-faith, multi-ethnic, multicultural society. To all this the Queen adapted, slowly and not always enthusiastically, but overall, wisely and well. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/04/GettyImages-530137388webready-eab239c-e1776682946240.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Three people at a formal event: one in a sequined gown with a tiara and jewellery, one in a patterned dress with gloves and pearls, and one in a light traditional outfit. They appear to be conversing in an ornate indoor setting." title="With Margaret Thatcher at a Commonwealth meeting in Zambia, 1979. The Queen placed great store on Britain’s membership of this association of more than 2.7 billion people (Image by Getty Images)" /> As the United Kingdom diversified, the British empire diminished, until by the end of her reign it had almost completely disappeared. However much she cared about it, and however hard she worked at it, being Head of the Commonwealth was scarcely the same as being Empress of India. In 1952 Britain was still – just – a great global power; 70 years later, it was a middle-sized nation that had sought to compensate for the loss of empire by joining the European Economic Community, a venture that was abandoned following the referendum of 2016. It thus fell to Elizabeth to preside, not only over domestic devolution, diversification and de-industrialisation, but also over imperial retreat and international withdrawal. This meant that although in later life she became, like Victoria before her, a justly venerated matriarch, the uplifting, expansive narrative widely proclaimed in 1887 and 1897 found no echoes in 2002, 2012 and 2022. Queen Elizabeth II’s greatest achievement was, perhaps, to make recessional majestic. These were not circumstances of her own choosing, but she made history, all the same. Sir David Cannadine is the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. His latest book is Queen Elizabeth II: A Concise Biography of an Exceptional Sovereign (OUP, 2025) This article was first published in the May 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
What did Anne Boleyn REALLY look like? Our new research could change everything
Dark or brunette? Fair or swarthy? A paragon of beauty or a refined charmer? Our picture of Henry VIII’s ill-fated second queen has become distorted over five centuries – but new research by Owen Emmerson and others comes closer to revealing her true appearance
Close your eyes and picture Anne Boleyn. Chances are you can conjure up a pretty clear and detailed image in your imagination – because few figures in English history seem as visually familiar as Henry VIII’s second queen. Representations of her face appear everywhere: in films, television dramas and novels, in museum gift shops and digital reconstructions. She is often depicted in popular culture as an elegant brunette whose sophistication distinguishes her from others at court. Over time, this image has hardened into something close to fact. Anne Boleyn, we are told, was devastatingly beautiful. Yet this certainty is built on fragile foundations, and surviving evidence provides a less concrete understanding of Anne’s appearance. No formal painted portraits from life survive today, though images in a number of smaller, more intimate formats – particularly miniatures – are candidates for having captured her true likeness based on contemporary encounters. The more-familiar portraits featuring the now-iconic ‘B’ pendant necklace, meanwhile, were likely created decades later, influenced by politics, artistic convention and hindsight. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/DXFXNM-38bec64-e1773309603951.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A woman with long dark braids, wearing a white period-style gown, sits on a cushioned bed and gently holds a baby wrapped in richly patterned blue and gold fabric. Dark wooden furniture and white bedding frame the intimate, historical-feeling scene" title="Natalie Dormer played Anne Boleyn in the television series The Tudors, which perpetuated modern ideas of the ill-fated queen as a dark-haired beauty (Image by Alamy)" /> For generations, historians assumed that any accurate representations created during Anne’s life had been lost altogether, erased after her execution in 1536 on the orders of Henry VIII. That story is compelling, but it is wrong. My research – which underpins Capturing a Queen: The Image of Anne Boleyn, a new exhibition at Anne’s childhood home, Hever Castle – suggests that her true likeness remained visible long after her dramatic death. Her image circulated widely in several different forms: in print, on medals and in drawings that outlived her. Alongside written descriptions left by those who saw her, these sources allow us to come close to understanding how Anne Boleyn looked. They also prompt a more revealing question: during her lifetime, was Anne admired for beauty – at least, as the 16th century understood it? And how much did beauty really matter in a court where power, conviction and function carried far greater weight? Ideals of beauty Today, audiences are encouraged to believe that Anne Boleyn must have been very beautiful indeed to have displaced Queen Catherine of Aragon in Henry VIII’s affections, and to have inspired him to reshape England’s religious and political landscape in order to marry her. This assumption reflects modern ideas about attraction and agency far more than it does the reality of Tudor mores. Different priorities shaped ideals of female beauty then: light colouring and complexion were widely admired. In 16th-century England, though, beauty alone rarely secured influence. At court, education, connections and presence mattered far more than looks. Intelligence, conversation and the ability to command attention in a highly performative environment were prized qualities. Anne excelled in these attributes. Read more | Anne Boleyn’s fatal French connection Anne stood out, but not because she perfectly embodied an ideal of beauty. Her continental education, her penchant for French fashions and her finely honed courtly manner set her apart in a milieu still shaped by conservative English expectations. Contemporary responses to her appearance consistently suggest moderate attractiveness rather than conventional beauty. To understand that distinction properly, we must turn to the accounts of her appearance and demeanour from people who saw her. Consistent picture Contemporary descriptions of Anne are limited but broadly consistent. Simon Grynaeus, a German humanist who visited the English court in 1531, wrote to a compatriot that she was “young, good-looking, of a rather dark complexion”. In October 1532, the Venetian ambassador Carlo Capello, in a report later recorded in Marino Sanuto’s Diarii, described her as “not one of the handsomest women in the world… of middling stature, swarthy complexion, long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised… and her eyes, which are black and beautiful”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/PD1438753-1778ee6-e1773309357932.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Engraved profile portrait of a man with long hair and a full beard, wearing high‑collared, layered Renaissance garments. The image is rendered with fine linework and cross‑hatching" title="An 18th-century engraving of German scholar Simon Grynaeus who, having met Anne Boleyn, described her as “young, good-looking, of a rather dark complexion” (Image by Topfoto)" /> Lancelot de Carle, secretary to the French ambassador in London, wrote a long poetic account of Anne’s fall and execution in 1536, emphasising her expression and presence rather than physical features. Even sympathetic observers were measured: the reformist cleric John Barlow described her as “reasonably good-looking”, a phrase that in Tudor usage suggested composure and refinement rather than striking beauty. What emerges is not the image of a woman celebrated for physical perfection but of someone whose appearance was animated by intelligence and presence. Observers repeatedly returned to her eyes and manner. The French diplomat Lancelot de Carle said of her eyes that she “knew well how to use [them] with effect”, capturing a sense of engagement, wit and command that made her captivating in person. For centuries, the absence of a painted portrait from Anne’s lifetime was explained by a dramatic story: that Henry VIII ordered every likeness of her be destroyed after her execution. The image of a furious king erasing the woman for whom he had broken with Rome is powerful, but has no basis in contemporary sources. The story appeared first in the 19th century, when historians sought an explanation for Anne’s apparent visual disappearance. What happened after the queen’s fall was administrative rather than vengeful. Anne’s badges and monograms were removed from royal buildings and replaced with those of her successor, Jane Seymour, just as Catherine of Aragon’s emblems had earlier been replaced by Anne’s. The King’s Works accounts for September 1536 list payments for removing Anne’s devices alongside those of Cardinal Wolsey, the king’s former chief minister, by then long dead. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/3BDA0P2-4f33c37-e1773310304248.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="Gilded wooden sculpture of a bird holding a staff. Intricate carved motifs and textured wings stand out against a red display background." title="A falcon badge from Hampton Court. This emblem of Anne Boleyn remained in place after her demise, despite claims that Henry ordered all traces of her be removed (Image by Alamy)" /> No orders to destroy Anne’s portraits have been found, and even the command to remove her emblems was carried out only partly. Many of her falcon badges remain in the roof of Hampton Court’s Great Hall, blackened with paint but intact. Moreover, inventories taken after Henry’s death show that he continued to own objects that had once belonged to Anne and were decorated with her iconography, albeit packed away in chests. Anne herself had become valueless to him, but the gold and silver fashioned into her goods had not. He did not destroy them, just ensured that they were no longer seen. The people’s prints Though no painted panel portrait survives from Anne’s lifetime, images of her certainly do. Some of the most revealing were created not for the elite interiors of palaces but for public circulation. In the summer of 1533, the prolific printer Wynkyn de Worde was employed to publish a pamphlet titled The Noble Tryumphaunt Coronacyon of Quene Anne. Its cover features a small woodcut long dismissed by historians as a generic courtly scene. However, in collaboration with historian Jessica Carey-Bunning, I have identified this as a narrative composition including three contemporary images of Anne Boleyn at distinct stages of her relationship with Henry VIII. The woodcut provides a visual sequence affirming the validity of the union. To the left, Henry courts Anne; in the centre, the couple are joined in marriage; and in the most prominent image, at the right, Henry and Anne are crowned beneath a cloth of estate, the king’s hand resting on his queen’s stomach. To a contemporary viewer, this was an explicit declaration of pregnancy. When the pamphlet was published, Anne was about six months pregnant with the child who would reign as Elizabeth I. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/BAL3286974-85c45de-e1773310578859.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A detailed black and white woodcut showing the same two figures three times over, in different positions, facing each other, standing and sitting" title="A 1533 woodcut shows three stages in the relationship between Henry and Anne, from left to right: wooing, the wedding, and a tender moment apparently signalling pregnancy (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> This woodcut image operated as a tool of legitimacy, fertility and dynastic hope. It was intended not to capture Anne’s features but, rather, to put her face to work. It was circulated deliberately and widely at the most politically sensitive moment of her queenship. Other contemporary images reinforce this visibility. A lead prototype or proof known as the ‘Moost Happi’ medal, likely commissioned in anticipation of a male heir and struck in 1534, depicts Anne in part profile wearing a gable hood, and bears the initials AR (for Anna Regina). Edward Hawkins, keeper of antiquities at the British Museum in the 19th century, suggested that another surviving lead prototype showing Henry was a companion to Anne’s medal. My discovery of a fully cast example of the companion medal of Henry, fashioned as a hat pin in modest tin, indicates that these likenesses were destined for a wide distribution beyond the court – an effort to disseminate images of the king and his new queen. Read more | Tudors in turmoil: deciphering Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors Another contemporary image of Anne survives in a sketch of her coronation banquet, depicting her crowned beneath a cloth of estate in Westminster Hall, the focal point of an elaborate theatrical display. Even in this crude drawing, Anne is unmistakably the axis around which the ceremony revolves. Together, these show that Anne was among the most visually represented queens of early Tudor England. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/hip2593496-f6287f1-e1773310819221.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A detailed pencil and chalk profile portrait of a person wearing a wrapped head covering, shown against a lightly toned background." title="Hans Holbein the Younger's drawing, likely depicting Anne, shows a number of key similarities to Hollar's picture (below) (Image by Topfoto)" /> Something rarer also survives: a glimpse of Anne Boleyn as she may have been seen by those who knew her personally. A chalk drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Royal Collection at Windsor, depicts a woman in a fur-trimmed nightgown with a simple coif, her eyes lowered in contemplation. Though its subject has long been debated, recent scholarship by Dr Kate Heard has fundamentally reshaped understanding of this work, strongly supporting its identification as Anne Boleyn. The drawing dates securely to Holbein’s second period in England, when he was working at the heart of the Tudor court, producing preparatory studies for both painted portraits and miniatures – and, crucially, working extensively under Anne’s patronage. The apparent informality of the portrait, once used to argue against the identification, now strengthens it. Comparable works by the Horenbout workshop similarly depict elite sitters such as Henry VIII’s son, the Duke of Richmond, in a state of undress, intended for private viewing. Technical examination by the Royal Collection Trust has revealed that the sitter’s hair was originally far darker than it appears today. Layers of red, brown and black chalk have been largely worn away, with only remnants visible. Most compelling, however, is the later inscription identifying Anne as the sitter, based on an attribution by Sir John Cheke, who had met Anne in 1534, benefited from her patronage, and was closely connected to her circle through his wife, Mary Hill. If identified correctly, which now seems highly likely, this drawing represents the most direct surviving contemporary likeness of Anne. It shows her not as a crowned emblem of dynastic hope, as her public image had been crafted, but as a thinking, contemplative and private individual. The Windsor drawing also unlocks the meaning of a later engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar titled Faith, or St Barbara, produced in 1647. This print, based on a now-lost Holbein design once in the Earl of Arundel’s collection, depicts a crowned female figure holding a chalice and wafer set against a landscape of cliffs and water. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/2TCATRR-055fb42-e1773310923192.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A finely detailed historical engraving depicting a crowned woman in elaborate robes. She stands holding a large chalice with a smooth sphere balanced on its rim. The line work is delicate and textured, and the background features soft shading and cloudlike forms, giving the scene a symbolic or allegorical tone." title="Wenceslaus Hollar based his engraving Faith, or Saint Barbara on a picture by Hans Holbein the Younger (Image by Alamy)" /> When compared closely with the Windsor drawing, the resemblance is striking: they share the same profile, jawline, eye shape and cranial structure. The correspondence between the two strongly suggests that Holbein’s use of Anne’s face for Saint Barbara was drawn from his preparatory study. In this reading, the Windsor drawing was not an isolated likeness but part of a broader artistic conception. The choice of that saint is significant because, like the reformist Anne, Barbara was associated with steadfast Christian faith and resistance to coercion when compelled to revert to traditional beliefs. In Anne’s book of hours, King’s MS 9, the illumination of Saint Barbara shares compositional similarities with the Windsor sketch and Hollar engraving, including a distinctive looped plait, indicating direct visual continuity. Portraying Anne in this guise would have aligned her queenship with conscience and reform. Seen in this light, the image becomes both devotional and political. It presents Anne not simply as consort but as belief embodied. Saint Barbara was martyred and executed by the sword – a parallel that later viewers of this image could hardly have missed. The tragic irony is inescapable, though clearly it lies beyond the image’s original intent. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/BAL7392888-edf5339-e1773314139385.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A circular portrait miniature of Anne Boleyn framed in gold. She wears a richly decorated Tudor headdress with gold embroidery and pearls, a dark gown with a square lace‑trimmed neckline, and a chain necklace, set against a deep blue background" title="Other portrait miniatures – including this one now in the collection of the Duke of Bucchleuch – share "a striking physiognomy" with other paintings (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> The possibility that Anne’s contemporary likeness survives in smaller, more intimate painted formats is strongly supported by this pairing of the Windsor sketch and the image of her as Saint Barbara. Two other near-identical portrait miniatures – one now in the collection of the Duke of Bucchleuch, the other in the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada – long associated with Anne, share a striking physiognomy with these two. When viewed together, the alignment of the facial structures is too close to be dismissed as a coincidence. These works appear to preserve a recognisable likeness circulating within and shortly after Anne’s lifetime, intended for private recognition rather than public proclamation. Though we can’t be absolutely certain of the person whom they portray, these miniatures stand as the most plausible painted candidates for capturing Anne Boleyn’s likeness from life. Read more | The Virgin Queen? Elizabeth I's forbidden love Changing faces After her execution, Anne’s image fell out of use. When it re-emerged during the reign of her daughter, Elizabeth I, it was in a radically altered political landscape. One of the most familiar images of Anne today is the portrait painted c1584 and catalogued as NPG 668 in the National Portrait Gallery. Long treated as a posthumously created likeness of Anne herself, it preserves something else: Elizabeth’s face. Art historian Lawrence Hendra has identified the creator of this famous panel painting as the as-yet-unnamed ‘Pearl Artist’. Comparing this artist’s other works – including portraits of Elizabeth I, her half-sister Mary I and her great-grandfather, Edward IV – it is clear that the painter used the same facial pattern for each sitter, including Anne Boleyn. The elongated facial structure, refined nose and controlled expression closely mirror Elizabeth’s physiognomy. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-92818829-f98bc7d-e1773311146880.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A richly detailed Tudor portrait of Anne Boleyn shown against a dark background. She wears an elaborate pearl‑studded headdress framing her face, a dark gown decorated with gold embroidery and pearls, and a necklace with a prominent gold “B” pendant. At the top of the painting, Latin text identifies her as “Anna Bolina, wife of Henry VIII.”" title="The 'Pearl Artist' painting of Anne. This was produced c1584 (Image by Getty Images)" /> This effort to make Elizabeth’s relatives, some of whom likely bore no resemblance to one another, look alike was deliberate. In the 1580s, Elizabeth’s position was vulnerable. She was unmarried, without an heir, and facing both internal Catholic resistance and external threat. So repainting her ancestors with her own facial features anchored her visually as the rightful queen at a time when her legitimacy was again in question. Ensuring that Elizabeth looked like her father’s relatives as well as her mother, who had been accused of adultery, was a covert attempt to transform Anne from a condemned queen into a dynastic foundation stone, visually legitimising her daughter’s rule. A different but equally deliberate innovation appears in the so-called Hever Rose portrait. Recent multi-modal scientific analysis by the Hamilton Kerr Institute, combined with dendrochronology (the dating of the wooden panel), places its painting in c1583, just one year before the famous picture in the National Portrait Gallery. Infrared reflectography reveals that the artist initially followed a pre-existing design but then interrupted it, inserting fully articulated hands holding a rose. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/Anne-Boleyn-16th-Century-Hever-Rose-24ca6bb-e1773311339212.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A richly detailed Tudor portrait of Anne Boleyn shown against a dark background. She wears an elaborate pearl‑studded headdress framing her face, a dark gown decorated with gold embroidery and pearls, and a necklace with a prominent gold “B” pendant. She has her hands held up against her chest. At the top of the painting, Latin text identifies her as “Anna Bolina, wife of Henry VIII.”" title="The Hever Rose portrait, painted c1583, is notable in deliberately depicting Anne’s hands – probably an attempt to nullify defamatory claims that she had possessed six fingers (Image by Hever Castle)" /> This moment matters, because it marks the first time Anne’s hands appeared in her posthumous iconography – a choice that was almost certainly polemical. In the early 1580s, defamatory claims by Nicholas Sander alleging that Anne possessed a sixth finger were already circulating widely in manuscript, years before they appeared in print. By depicting elegant, unblemished hands, with each finger made carefully visible, the artist offers a quiet but pointed rebuttal to this claim. Both portraits respond to the same anxiety. In a period when Elizabeth’s legitimacy was under attack, Anne’s image was re-engineered to defend it: her face reshaped to mirror the queen’s, her body corrected to refute slander. Art became a form of political repair. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/BAL872290-3b47074-e1773313278928.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A highly detailed Elizabethan portrait showing a figure in an opulent gown covered with pearls, gemstones, and intricate gold embroidery. A tall, floral-patterned lace ruff frames the neck, and the sitter’s tightly curled hair is topped with a pearl‑ and jewel‑encrusted headdress. The dark background emphasizes the elaborate textures and craftsmanship of the clothing and accessories." title="Contemporary portraits, like the one of Elizabeth I above, were clearly based on the same facial pattern used in the 'Pearl Artist' painting of Anne (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> Lost likeness Nearly five centuries after her execution, we may never know precisely what Anne Boleyn looked like. Her face survives only in fragments, refracted through prisms of politics, art and memory. Yet this uncertainty is not a failure of evidence; it is part of her history. The images and descriptions that survive show that Anne was not invisible, and not admired solely for her beauty. She was compelling because of her presence, intelligence and conviction. She understood the power of being seen, and used imagery, print and ceremony to assert her place in the world. In the end, the question of her appearance matters not because it satisfies curiosity but because it restores agency. Anne Boleyn was not merely a face shaped by others but an active participant – through her patronage of Holbein and the Horenbout family, not least – in how she was represented, remembered and contested. Approaching 500 years on, we are still learning to see her clearly. Unpicking locks What colour was Anne Boleyn's hair? Modern portrayals often depict Anne with jet-black hair, reinforcing an image of dark, exotic beauty. The historical record, however, is more ambiguous. Contemporary descriptions mention dark eyes and darker complexion, but none explicitly describe hair colour – likely because it may not have seemed remarkable enough to comment upon. Some later sources describe Anne as “witch-like” with black hair; others suggest chestnut or reddish tones. The poet Thomas Wyatt may have been referring to her when he wrote of a “brunet” woman. In Tudor usage, that could refer to dark hair, darker skin or both, and was often used to signal complexion rather than colouring alone. Genetics adds more uncertainty. Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth I, was red-haired, as was Henry VIII in his youth. Red hair is linked to variants of the MC1R gene expressed only if inherited from both parents, so Anne must have carried at least one such variant. Though not proof that she herself was red-haired, this significantly increases the likelihood, and makes chestnut or auburn tones entirely plausible. Later portraits often show Anne with lighter reddish-brown hair. These may reflect attempts to align her appearance more closely with Elizabeth’s, reinforcing dynastic continuity. In a culture where fair hair was associated with virtue, this shift was politically advantageous. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/03/GettyImages-544168286-132885d-e1773314361550.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A richly detailed Tudor portrait of Anne Boleyn shown against a dark background. She wears an elaborate pearl‑studded headdress framing her face, a dark gown decorated with gold embroidery and pearls, and a necklace with a prominent gold “B” pendant." title="A late 16th-century portrait shows Anne with reddish hair, again perhaps tying her to Elizabeth (Image by Getty Images)" /> This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
The prince and the brothel: 6 scandals that rocked the British monarchy
At a time when the royal family is under significant strain, historians shine a spotlight on some of the biggest crises to have enveloped the British monarchy over the past three centuries
The prince, the brothel and a culture war Katie Hindmarch-Watson describes a sex scandal that consumed Queen Victoria’s grandson On 7 July 1889, a policeman arrested a sometime telegraph boy, Henry Newlove, at his mother’s house in Camden Town. Newlove had been recruiting younger telegraph boys at London’s Central Telegraph Office to provide sexual services for affluent male clients at a brothel on Cleveland Street. Defiant, Newlove said that he thought it “very hard that I should get into trouble while men in high position are allowed to walk around free… Why, Lord Arthur Somerset goes regularly to the house at Cleveland Street; so does the Earl of Euston and Colonel Jervois.” Within months, Newlove was in prison and Somerset was in exile. Yet Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, triumphed in a libel suit that exonerated him from any “gross indecency”, and Colonel Jervois received no further mention in police records or the press. However, another man in high position became the focus of speculation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL11686324webready-dfc0737-e1770036564257.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A newspaper depicting several scenes of men in top hats and young boys standing in the street" title="The Cleveland Street Scandal, as reported in The Illustrated Police News on 25 January 1890. The affair – which embroiled Prince Albert Victor – “evolved into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices” (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> We still don’t really know why Prince Albert Victor – or ‘Eddy’, grandson of Queen Victoria and oldest son of the Prince of Wales – became linked to the story. Arthur Somerset had been his father’s equerry, but there is no evidence that the two men associated with one another, and no proof has emerged one way or another about Eddy’s propensity for sex with teenage telegraph boys. The Cleveland Street Scandal evolved from Newlove’s revelations into a morality tale about rich men’s predatory vices, unequal treatment before the law, and the public’s right to private revelations. Prince Eddy was a potent symbol in a class culture war that pitted aristocratic privilege against aspiring youths in a modernising city. The rumours were enough to spark royal intervention. The Prince of Wales instructed courtiers to keep his son’s name out of the British press, and crown prosecutors used coded language to discuss the persistent suggestion that Eddy was involved. Eddy’s death of pneumonia in 1892 quashed any further need to protect his reputation – but something shady still clings to his memory. Katie Hindmarch-Watson is an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University Did Queen Victoria marry her servant? When the widowed monarch fell for the son of a farmer, the nation was scandalised, says Fern Riddell Just a few years after Prince Albert died, the widowed Victoria found herself in the middle of a huge scandal. She was accused of falling in love – and even marrying – her Highland servant, John Brown. For the Victorians, the idea that their monarch might be having a passionate love affair with the son of an Aberdeenshire farmer was truly shocking. Their society was ruled by class, and John was very clearly outside Victoria’s. Her court despised John for his ordinary background, and her government was convinced that he was a threat to both her security and that of the crown. Rumours filled the newspapers that Victoria was mad, and that John was her keeper. Meanwhile, gossips insinuated that he was using supernatural powers to control her and make her fall in love with him. Read more | How I uncovered Victoria's secret love: historian Fern Riddell explains all For 20 years, John stood at Victoria’s side in silence, enduring personal attacks in the press and the threat of violence from Victoria’s public, who believed that he was the reason she was living in seclusion. But Victoria refused to listen to the criticism. She didn’t care who hated John – her family, her court, her government or her people. She refused to be parted from him. By the time John died in 1883, many were convinced that they had privately married. When Victoria attempted to publish a manuscript exposing their life together, the papers were seized and burned by her private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, to avoid another terrible scandal. Twenty years later, when Victoria left private instructions for her own burial, she directed that she should be buried with John’s mother’s wedding ring on her finger, and with a lock of his hair and his photograph in her hand. For the next 150 years, John’s family kept a secret archive of Victoria’s letters, jewellery and artefacts about their relationship. They believed that it was too dangerous to expose the truth of their love for one another – until today. Luckily for us, what was scandalous for the Victorians has now been revealed as the greatest love affair of Victoria’s reign. Fern Riddell’s latest book is Victoria’s Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen (Ebury, 2025) Edward VIII puts love before duty The king’s insistence on marrying Wallis Simpson caused a constitutional crisis, writes Alexander Larman The expulsion of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew) from the royal family has undoubtedly been the most scandalous story that ‘the Firm’ has weathered in decades. But it does not even come close to 1936 in constitutional significance. Andrew is, after all, the second son of the late Elizabeth II, whereas Edward VIII was king – albeit a reluctant one. After ascending to the throne following the death of his father, George V, he made it clear that ruling was of secondary importance to his love affair with the married American socialite Wallis Simpson. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-141556826webready-4b8a928-e1770036748150.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="The former Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on their wedding day, 3 June 1937. The monarchy’s current woes don’t “even come close” to Edward’s abdication in constitutional significance, writes Alexander Larman (Image by Getty Images)" title="The former Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson on their wedding day, 3 June 1937. The monarchy’s current woes don’t “even come close” to Edward’s abdication in constitutional significance, writes Alexander Larman (Image by Getty Images)" /> It was a sign of the respect in which the monarchy was held at the time that no mention of that relationship was ever made in the British papers, despite it being common knowledge (and freely speculated upon in the European and American media). Had the king been content to keep Wallis as his mistress, the press magnates Lords Beaverbrook and Rothermere would have continued to keep the potentially embarrassing story quiet. Yet Edward would not agree to be crowned king in 1937 unless Wallis could become queen. This was impossible for both religious and social reasons, so he announced his intention of abdicating. Constitutionally, this was more difficult than he had imagined, because of the settlement following the deposition of James II & VII, which ensured that the king ruled by consent of parliament. Only the interventions of the king’s lawyer, Walter Monckton, and prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, allowed Edward to quit the throne, assume the title of Duke of Windsor, and marry Wallis. He left England still well regarded by his subjects, but later revelations about his alleged support for the Nazis irrevocably tarnished this affection. The Duke of Windsor is today regarded as one of Britain’s least popular – if most consequential – monarchs. I suspect that Edward and the abdication will be remembered long after Andrew has become a footnote in royal history. Alexander Larman is a historian, journalist and author of books including The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication (W&N, 2020) The Prince Regent’s marital misery Few royal marriages can have been more hellish than that of Caroline of Brunswick and the wastrel Prince Regent, writes Nigel Jones Thanks to the brilliantly illustrated scandal sheets of Regency Britain, the disastrous marriage of the Prince Regent, later King George IV, to Princess Caroline of Brunswick kept the country entertained and outraged for a quarter of a century. George, a spendthrift wastrel, was hopelessly in debt. Though secretly married to the Roman Catholic Maria Fitzherbert, in 1795 the prince reluctantly took (sight unseen) a legitimate, Protestant bride – his first cousin, Caroline of Brunswick – in the hope that her money would pay off his creditors. It was hate at first sight. George told Lord Malmesbury, who had brought his bride from Germany, “Harris, I am not well: pray get me a glass of brandy.” Equally unimpressed, Caroline found her husband fatter than she’d been led to believe. Meanwhile, Malmesbury noted her poor personal hygiene. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-464476543webready-588f5c4-e1770036889924.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A colourful cartoon showing a couple in the centre, each being dragged in opposite directions by other couples" title="An 1820 cartoon pokes fun at George IV’s attempt to dissolve his marriage to Caroline of Brunswick. The disastrous union “kept the country entertained and outraged for a quarter of a century”, says Nigel Jones (Image by Getty Images)" /> Despite drinking for three days before their wedding, George performed his marital duties: nine months later Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Charlotte. But he made his wife’s life so hellish that she soon went into exile in Europe. She settled in a lakeside villa near Como, met (and joked about having sex with) the pope, and reportedly threw parties at which she danced topless. Read more | The illness and decline of King George III George sent spies to report on her misdeeds, hoping to obtain evidence for a divorce. Caroline’s lovers reputedly included a young Italian and – more scandalously still – Marshal Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law and ruler of Naples, at a time when Britain was at war with France. When George III died in 1820, Caroline returned to claim her place as queen. But not only did the new king have her tried by the House of Lords for adultery, he had the doors of Westminster Abbey barred when she tried to attend his coronation. The hypocritical adultery accusations having been dropped, Caroline was cheered by the London mob, who saw her as a symbol of opposition to the king. Broken by her humiliation, though, she died three weeks later. Nigel Jones is a historian and writer. His books include Kitty’s Salon (John Blake, 2023) Georgian Britain’s disobedient rake The disreputable Duke of Cumberland caused no end of trouble, writes Felicity Day George III started his reign with noble ambitions: to be a moral leader, faithful to his wife and head of a united royal family. Regrettably, not all of his clan got the memo. George’s younger brother Henry, Duke of Cumberland was notionally a naval officer but in reality a rake-about-town. A dispute with a courtesan had already dragged him into the newspapers before he hit the headlines in 1769 over a more scandalous affair with Lady Grosvenor. The couple were caught by her husband’s servants in a bedchamber in a coaching inn in St Albans, their clothing in disarray. Henry was hauled into court to account for his ‘criminal conversation’ with another man’s wife. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/BAL416311webready-df88fb0-e1770036955185.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A painting showing a young woman in a gold dress, with a high, grey hairdo" title="In 1771, George III’s younger brother Henry secretly married widow and commoner Anne Horton (shown in a c1777 portrait). Henry’s spirited antics strained the public’s tolerance for the monarchy (Image by Bridgeman Images)" /> With revelations ranging from the disguises he donned for secret trysts to the inarticulate and ungrammatical style of his love letters, the duke was made to look ridiculous. A £13,000 bill for damages and costs had to be covered from the Civil List – and, to the king’s further shame, the press was filled with comment about un-princely conduct dragging the nation into disrepute. Then, in 1771, it emerged that Henry had secretly married. His bride was the widow Anne Horton – a commoner, and daughter of a notorious libertine. Furious, the king exiled them from court, and refused to provide financial support. In an attempt to prevent any further such disobedience, he pushed his government into passing the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which made it illegal for royals under the age of 25 to wed without the monarch’s consent. Read more | Charlotte and Diana: the parallel lives of two Princesses of Wales whose deaths sent the nation into mourning It didn’t stop the outcast couple causing trouble. The Cumberlands set up a lively rival court, consorting with opposition politicians and befriending the future George IV and his eldest brothers – who followed their uncle into lives of gambling, womanising and general extravagance, causing countless more PR crises and pushing public support for the royals to the brink. The determined respectability of Victoria’s court was without doubt a direct reaction to their steady drumbeat of scandals. Felicity Day is a journalist and author of The Game of Hearts: True Stories of Regency Romance (Blink Publishing, 2024) Elizabeth II misreads the public mood When the Queen seemed to stay silent in the wake of Princess Diana’s death, she was seen as out of touch, says Shrabani Basu It was meant to be a lazy Sunday at the end of the summer holidays. But on 31 August 1997, Britons woke to the shocking news that Diana, Princess of Wales had died following a car crash in a Paris tunnel. Her friend Dodi Fayed and the car’s driver Henri Paul had also lost their lives. Diana had rarely been away from the headlines. From the Panorama interview in which she famously said that “there were three of us in this marriage”, to the latest round of holiday photos with Dodi Fayed, the end of her fairy-tale wedding to Prince Charles had fuelled tabloid sales for years. Now a pall of gloom descended over Britain. Within hours of the crash, Kensington Palace had turned into a shrine for the late princess. Everyone from Mother Teresa to heads of state was expressing their grief. But though a short statement expressing shock and distress was issued from Buckingham Palace, Diana’s former mother-in-law remained at Balmoral Castle, 500 miles from London, seemingly unmoved. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-73389657webready-1d8b4e5-e1770037044850.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A photograph showing lots of flowers and written tributes along a spiked metal fence. To the right, a young boy ties something around one of the fence posts" title="A boy attaches a tribute to the railings of Kensington Palace following the death of Princess Diana, 1997. This would “become one of the most trying moments in Elizabeth II’s reign”, writes Shrabani Basu (Image by Getty Images)" /> The Queen was following the rule book – Diana was technically no longer a royal. But the press reflected public sentiment. “Where is our Queen?” screamed The Sun. “Show us you care,” demanded The Express. For once, Elizabeth had not read the national mood. Speculation mounted in the vacuum, with some blaming Charles for his infidelity and for driving Diana into Dodi’s arms. All in all, it would become one of the most trying moments in Elizabeth II’s reign, when the monarchy seemed to have lost the plot. Eventually, an intervention by the newly elected prime minister, Tony Blair, convinced the Queen that she needed to be heard. Four days later Elizabeth appeared at the gates of Balmoral and looked at the wreaths. Five days after Diana’s death, she finally made a live broadcast from Buckingham Palace, speaking as a “Queen and as a grandmother”. The people forgave her, and faith in the monarchy was restored. Shrabani Basu is author of Victoria & Abdul: The Extraordinary True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant (The History Press, 2010) This article was first published in the January 2026 issue of HistoryExtra magazine
How I uncovered Victoria's secret love: Historian Fern Riddell explains all
There have long been whispers of a romance between the queen and her Scottish servant John Brown, but nothing concrete to support them. Now Fern Riddell, author of an explosive new book, reveals how she turned sleuth to track down evidence of their secret passion
The story that’s consumed my life for much of the past few years has it all: family dysfunction, political intrigue, royalty, the rewriting of our national history. A secret hidden for generations. These are the sort of things historians can get carried away by. When we’re undertaking historical research, it often becomes clear that the relationship between fact and fiction can be a murky one. There’s often a gap between what we want the truth to be and the reality of the lives that have been lived. So it was with my latest project. After four months of research, I couldn’t quite believe what I’d uncovered. I’d been tracing the footsteps of both historians and historical people, and I was finally convinced that what I’d found came close to representing irrefutable proof of a remarkable secret – one offering an answer to a 160-year-old question. But making the breakthrough didn’t come without risk – one faced by nearly every historian who had got so far before me, and who turned back at the final hurdle, unable to bring their research to light. WATCH | Fern Riddell on her quest to discover the secrets of Victoria's later love life View Green Video on the source website So, before I pushed ahead, I called a trusted friend and mentor to discuss what I thought I’d discovered. “I’ve found it,” I exclaimed. “I’ve found the lost archive of Queen Victoria and John Brown.” Royal inspiration Towards the end of 2021, my agent, Kirsty McLachlan, had set me a challenge. “You need a new project,” she declared. “What can you say about Queen Victoria?” “I don’t do the royals,” I retorted, instantly rejecting the suggestion. “Anyway, most royal historians face censorship the moment they find anything interesting.” My focus has always been on the stories of ordinary people – what we call ‘history from below’. These are the lives that fascinate me, not those of the wealthy and powerful. Victoria felt like a lost cause. After all, what could be left to discover about one of history’s most famous women? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/TOPFOTO-hip2652872-2webready-c8032de.jpg" width="1500" height="916" alt="A painting shows Queen Victoria dressed all in black on top of a black horse. To the left, John Brown, dressed in black with a kilt, stands holding the horse's reign. By him, two dogs lay on the ground. On the far left, two women, dressed in blue and beige are seated on a bench. In the background, there is a large yellow manor house" title="A painting of Victoria and John Brown at Osborne House, her private family home on the Isle of Wight, in 1865. Brown began accompanying the queen more frequently after Albert’s death, first joining her at Osborne in 1864 (Image by TopFoto)" /> But there has always been something fascinating about Queen Victoria. She is an enigma: a woman who became the cornerstone of an empire, a queen, a wife, a mother and an icon of an entire age. Her life with her husband, Prince Albert, has been the subject of multiple dramas and documentaries, as has her grief-stricken widowhood after his death in 1861, aged only 42. But what this passionate mother of nine did for her own comfort in the lonely decades that followed has only been whispered about, until now. There have long been rumours surrounding Queen Victoria’s relationship with her Scottish Highland servant, John Brown. Were they lovers? Did they marry in secret? Did they even have a child together? However, no one had been able to establish the truth. This, I decided, was something that piqued my curiosity – a thread to pull and see where it led. John Brown is often relegated to a footnote in Victoria’s history, glossed over as a servant, or awkwardly portrayed as ‘just a friend’. Yet for almost 20 years he stood at Victoria’s side as her “strong right arm”, her “best friend” – and, as I discovered, her “beloved John” and her “true and devoted one”. But as I carefully set out on my research, I had little comprehension of the journey I was about to take, nor the astonishing secret it would reveal. Read more | “There was a general perception that Queen Victoria’s mourning was neither normal nor acceptable” Searching for sources With the thought of perhaps writing about Victoria’s mid-life, I ordered every book ever written about John Brown. Modern historians have long believed this to be a pointless effort, knowing that most of John’s original documents – his diaries, letters and more – were destroyed by members of Victoria’s court after his death in 1883. But I felt sure that something must remain somewhere. I started with Queen Victoria’s John Brown by EEP Tisdall, which was published in 1938. It’s gossipy and fun, but entirely devoid of references or sources – useless for my purposes, except for insights into how John was seen 50 years after his death. Next up was Tom Cullen’s The Empress Brown: The Story of a Royal Friendship, released some three decades later. This turned out to be a goldmine. In its pages are a series of letter facsimiles from Victoria, the original documents faithfully reproduced for readers. They showcase such a tenderness between Victoria and John, as well as his family, and I felt an itch – a historian’s twitch – that there was much more to this history than I had been aware of before. While combing Cullen’s acknowledgements, I saw a reference to John’s descendants, and a brief mention that they held a family archive. This is also hinted at by Raymond Lamont-Brown, author of John Brown: Queen Victoria’s Highland Servant (2000). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-514896440webready-5a9d214.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A black and white photograph of Victoria and Albert. He sits on the left, dressed in a black suit and bow tie, with one arm leaning on the back of the seat and the other holding a scroll. Victoria, dressed in a long white dress, sits on the right, looking slightly away from Albert and the camera" title="Victoria and Albert in 1854, some 14 years after the queen married her first cousin. By the time this photograph was taken, she had already borne eight of the nine children they would have together (Image by Getty Images)" /> That was when things started to become interesting. Although rumours of a family archive, kept safe by John’s surviving relatives, have long swirled, no one would say where it was held or if it still existed. This felt like a mystery I wanted to solve. These letters must be real, I thought – more than one person claimed to have seen them – yet only Cullen provided evidence. No historian since had been able to bring them into the public eye. Had they been destroyed? Lost? Or were they still out there, waiting to be found? I started by tracing John’s surviving family: the descendants of his brothers James, Donald, William, Hugh and Archie. Hugh and Hilda Lamond, grandchildren of John’s second-youngest brother Hugh, appear in historians’ acknowledgements more than once, and I became convinced that they must have been the guardians of the family archive. But their own descendants emigrated to the US in the 1970s, and I had no idea how to contact them. I reminded myself that modern historians need to be able to utilise many different tools and skill sets for our research. One of the most powerful resources we have today is the internet, providing access to digitised records. In the space of a single afternoon, using the gigantic global databases available via Ancestry and Scotland’s People, I mapped out John Brown’s entire family – including his brothers and cousins – through births, marriages, deaths and census records. This led me to Minnesota, and a burning question: did John Brown’s great-great-great-nieces still hold on to their family’s precious collection, packed carefully in moving crates, carried down the generations and now possibly on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean? Long shot At that point, the pandemic continued to hold the world in its grip. How was I to get in touch with Brown’s relatives some 4,000 miles away in the US? Genealogy can get you only so far, and I had no up-to-date contact information. And yet… might they be on Facebook? It seemed like the longest of shots but, as I typed their names into the search bar, a result flashed up instantly. A connection to the descendants of Hugh Brown – the only people who might, just possibly, hold the keys to the John Brown family archive – was right in front of me. I opened up Facebook’s messenger app and began to type, unsure if I would get a response. Eventually I hit send – and sat back to wait. Days and weeks went by, with no response from Minnesota. So I returned to the documents I could access – those letters uncovered by Cullen more than 50 years ago – for hints that some of John Brown’s papers must have survived somewhere. On a whim, I typed lines from the letters into Google – and, to my shock, a link to an archive in Aberdeen appeared. Suddenly, there it was in high definition, staring back at me: an original letter, kept safe by Aberdeen City Archives. As I gazed at the screen, the realisation slowly dawned on me that I could confirm for the first time the existence of part of the John Brown family archive. Surely it couldn’t be simply sitting there, waiting to be discovered? But I learned a long time ago that, with a history and a nation as diverse as ours, and with correspondingly bulging archives, answers are often to be found sitting in plain sight. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain Within an hour I found two more letters in the archives, digitised and perfunctorily labelled. There was nothing to give away their significance, no indication of their importance. But if I could confirm that at least some of the archive had survived, then might that prove there was more out there to find? And why, after John Brown’s family had kept this secret for so long, was some of it now available in a public archive with little information and no fanfare? I booked a research trip to Aberdeen. Meanwhile, I began the forensic work of raking through the city’s entire online library, collections and archives. I realised that references to John Brown, both artefacts and letters, are scattered across Aberdeen’s new Treasure Hub, Aberdeen Art Gallery and Town House archive. On my first research trip to the city, I held the original letters in my hands, reading in Victoria’s own handwriting her memories of John: “So often I told him no one loved him more than I did… and he answered, ‘nor you than me, no-one loves you more’.” I was awestruck by this powerful declaration between Victoria and John. In Town House, the team allowed me to rifle through the collection of the writer, artist and historian Fenton Wyness. I’d found a passing reference that this included some material on Brown, but what I found there astonished me. At some point in the 1950s or 1960s, Wyness – a local Aberdeenshire historian – decided to write about John Brown. Like Tom Cullen, he was given access to the John Brown family archive, which he then proceeded to photograph in its entirety. Now, in the archive in Aberdeen, I realised that a record of the letters, documents, cards and gifts from Victoria to John and his family was sitting in boxes all around me. It’s an incredible resource to study – a reference collection that is utterly unmatched. Pieces of the puzzle Over the three years that followed, as I travelled to Aberdeen and to other archives and private collections across the country, Victoria and John’s life together began to unfold. And the story is vastly different to the one we have been told before – as I reveal in my new book, Victoria’s Secret: The Private Passion of a Queen. The documents I unearthed and studied provide undeniable proof of an intense love affair and, I believe, evidence that John Brown and Victoria did indeed marry – as well as of a determined and ongoing campaign to eradicate him from her history after their deaths. The language Victoria used in her letters to describe her relationship with John deepened as the years went by. She called him her “darling one”, “faithful and devoted”, while describing herself as his “true and devoted one”. Cards she sent him, recorded in the John Brown family archive, are printed with the words “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” and poems such as “I send my sewing maiden / with new year’s letter laden, / its words will prove / my faith and love, / to you my heart’s best treasure, / then smile on her and smile on me, / and let your answer loving be / and give me pleasure.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/08/Alamy-3BJNGW8webready-262dc4c.jpg" width="1500" height="1911" alt="A man sits facing the left. He has a thick beard and brown hair and has a blue collared jacket" title="Norman Macleod, Victoria’s Scottish chaplain, portrayed in a posthumous painting. He reportedly confessed on his deathbed to marrying the queen and John Brown (Image by Alamy)" /> Also revealed in Victoria’s Secret is the possibility that Victoria and John had an ‘irregular marriage’, a legal marriage under Scottish law that involved an exchange of vows and potentially rings, the evidence of which sits in portraits and photographs of John from 1873 onwards. Add to this the fact that Victoria’s Scottish chaplain, Norman Macleod, confessed on his deathbed to marrying them, and that Victoria went to her grave wearing John’s mother’s wedding ring – a point that was hidden from her children at the time – and it feels to me like solid, irrefutable evidence of their relationship. Floored by photos Although I tried to remain clinical and dispassionate as I weighed the material that I was collecting, a couple of objects floored me. In Treasure Hub sits a photographic album Victoria dedicated and gifted to John’s mother, Margaret Leys. It is bursting with pictures of both Brown’s family and her own, side by side – a record of all of the people who mattered to them. But nothing prepared me for the revelation that, in the week after John’s death, Victoria had his hand cast and then carved in stone. The photograph of this object in Fenton Wyness’s collection – the tender placement of John’s hand on a pillow, the importance given to a signet ring that he wore every day from 1873 onwards – felt like a gut punch. Finally, there is a pair of four-leafed clovers that Victoria and John collected, and which he dried and taped into a scrapbook, their stems crossed over one another for eternity. In the Victorian language of flowers, this has a singular meaning: Be Mine. I still had unanswered questions, though – and the only people who might have been able to help answer them were thousands of miles away in America. Fortunately, at that stage Angela, one of Hugh Brown’s descendants whom I’d attempted to contact via Facebook, got in touch. She is bubbly and forthright – and, with the agreement of her family, was happy to discuss their history and the stories she had heard while growing up. Read more | Queen of spies? Inside Queen Victoria’s secret intelligence network Over a series of calls, emails and texts, she slowly began to trust me with a secret her family had kept for a very long time. Not only do they have the final remnants of the John Brown family archive, including original documents, such as Victoria’s own investigation into John’s family history, but they also guard a story that is fantastical and amazing. Angela was sanguine, telling me that “it’s just what I’ve always been told – I don’t know if it’s true”. Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder: could this be the final missing piece of the puzzle for which I’d been searching so long? Throughout my research, and across John’s life, one of his siblings featured more prominently than all of the others: Hugh, whose family became the guardians of John and Victoria’s legacy. As I was writing and researching, it became increasingly clear that, though all of John’s brothers and their families mattered to Victoria, Hugh and his wife, Jessie, were most dear to the queen. Unusually among John’s extensive clan, they had only one child – a daughter, Mary Ann, Angela’s great-grandmother. According to Angela, Mary Ann was the secret child of John Brown and Queen Victoria. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/GettyImages-1450268872webready-5502a62-e1753974720717.jpg" width="1488" height="1010" alt="Victoria pictured with her children and a bust of Prince Albert, 1863. Beatrice was the last of her babies officially recorded – but did the queen later give birth to another daughter, fathered by John Brown? (Image by Getty Images)" title="Victoria pictured with her children and a bust of Prince Albert, 1863. Beatrice was the last of her babies officially recorded – but did the queen later give birth to another daughter, fathered by John Brown? (Image by Getty Images)" /> Whispers of a love child have swirled since the 1860s, but historians have always been quick to dismiss such rumours. They claim that Victoria was unable to have more children after the birth of her last acknowledged daughter, Princess Beatrice, in 1857, as she suffered from a prolapsed uterus. However, this condition was only discovered after the queen’s death in 1901. None of Victoria’s doctors reported any evidence that she suffered it in the aftermath of Beatrice’s birth. As a prolapsed uterus is common – nearly half of women over 50 will experience some form of pelvic organ prolapse during their lifetime – I believe this ‘fact’ has become historical misinformation, used to discredit any chance of a child between Victoria and John. Moreover, as I discovered during my research, although Victoria was advised not to have more children after Beatrice, it had no connection to her physical health. After her repeated battles with severe post-partum depression, including hallucinations and possibly even psychosis, Victoria’s doctors were terrified that another pregnancy would send her mad. This was the reason why she was advised against having any further children. But there is even evidence to suggest that she was planning to have another baby before Prince Albert died in 1861. “Mama so longed for another child,” her eldest daughter, ‘Vicky’ (Victoria), wrote after Albert’s death. So it is perfectly possible that Victoria could have had a child with John in 1865, the year of Mary Ann’s birth. The queen was healthy, fertile and only 45. Many of John’s female relatives – indeed, Victorian women more generally – had children into their mid- to late forties. Journey of discovery It was not the end of the story, of course. But that discovery set me on a long journey to try to separate family memory from historical fact. My research took me from the glorious glens of the Scottish Highlands to the wildness of 1860s Otago in New Zealand’s South Island, and back again. The reality of Victoria’s secret was long buried by panicking politicians, government campaigns, cowardly courtiers and family rebellion. Without DNA evidence, we may never know the truth – but, every time I speak to Angela, I find myself surreptitiously looking for any resemblance to Victoria in her face. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/07/10508806webready-4fb264a-e1753974815126.jpg" width="1498" height="1000" alt="A statue showing an man with white hair, dressed in a jacket and kilt" title="A statue of John Brown at Balmoral. “The revelation that the queen chose the son of a Scottish crofter as her second husband, and potentially had a child with him, would have rocked Victorian society like a nuclear explosion,” writes Fern Riddell (Image by Mary Evans)" /> The revelation that the queen chose the son of a Scottish crofter as her second husband, and potentially had a child with him, would have rocked Victorian society like a nuclear explosion. Her world did not believe that a common man could look at a king as an equal, let alone marry a queen. Yet, based on the evidence I’ve found, I believe that this is exactly what Victoria did. Far from remaining the grieving widow for the rest of her days, she spent her passionate mid-life privately joined to a man who saw her as “his only object in life”. Now it is time for John and his family to take their rightful place in history once again. Dr Fern Riddell’s new book, Victoria’s Secret (Ebury Press), is out now in hardback. The book has inspired a Channel 4 documentary, Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage, Secret Child?, which is available to stream now This article is in the September 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Charles and Diana: a history of their marriage
Their 15-year marriage began with a fairy tale wedding and saw the birth of two princes, but ended in a public and acrimonious divorce involving infidelity that threatened to rock the monarchy. But what was the real nature of Prince Charles and Diana’s relationship: how did they meet, when did cracks first appear, were they in love, and was Diana really the wronged party? We asked royal biographer Penny Junor to tell us the real story of Charles and Diana…
Who was Diana, Princess of Wales? Maiden name: Diana Frances Spencer Born: 1 July 1961 at Park House, the home that her parents rented on Queen Elizabeth II’s estate at Sandringham Died: 31 August 1997, in a car accident in Paris (aged 36) Married to: Prince Charles (m. 1981–96) Height: 1.78 m Children: Prince William (born 1982) and Prince Harry (born 1984) Grandchildren: Prince George (born 2013); Princess Charlotte (born 2015); Prince Louis (born 2018); Archie Mountbatten-Windsor (born 2019) Parents: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer & Frances Roche Siblings: Lady Sarah McCorquodale (1955–present); Jane Fellowes, Baroness Fellowes (1957–present); John Spencer, died within 10 hours of his birth on 12 January 1960; Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer (1964–present) Educated: Silfield Private School in Gayton, Norfolk; Riddlesworth Hall School near Thetford; West Heath Girls’ School in Sevenoaks, Kent; Institut Alpin Videmanette in Rougemont, Switzerland View Green Video on the source website When did Diana Spencer meet Prince Charles? It was in the summer of 1980, at a house party hosted by Diana’s friend Philip de Pass in New Grove, near Petworth, that Prince Charles first saw Diana Spencer as a potential girlfriend. Sitting next to each other on a bale of hay at a post-polo barbecue, an 19-year-old Diana expressed her sympathy for Charles over the loss of his beloved great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, who had been murdered by the IRA a year earlier. “My heart bled for you when I watched the funeral; I thought, ‘It’s wrong, you’re lonely – you should be with somebody to look after you’,” said Diana. This, says Penny Junor, was exactly what Charles needed to hear. “Mountbatten was a very important figure in Charles’s life and he was in a fragile state at that point,” says Junor. “Diana really touched a nerve in Charles, she said just the right thing to him, at the right moment, and he was moved by her.” This encounter was not, however, the first time Charles and Diana had met. The pair had been introduced two years earlier, in 1977 – Charles thought her “jolly” when he visited Althorp, the Spencer estate, when he was dating Diana’s older sister, Lady Sarah (a relationship that ended in early 1978). Diana had also attended Charles’s 30th birthday party along with her sister at Buckingham Palace in November 1978, and in January 1979 Diana again met Charles when she and Sarah were guests of Queen Elizabeth II at a weekend shooting party at Sandringham. After that weekend, Charles occasionally invited Diana to the ballet as part of a group or to dinner with friends. The relationship was, at this stage, purely platonic – Diana was fun to have around. It was not until their heart-to-heart about Lord Mountbatten in 1980 that Charles first saw Diana as girlfriend material. Keen to spend more time with Diana, Charles promptly invited her to Balmoral to join him and a group of friends staying there for a summer holiday. Diana enchanted and delighted. “She seemed to be the perfect girl,” says Junor. “She was funny, she was fun, everybody seemed to love her – she made everyone laugh and she seemed to adore Charles. “She was, on paper, absolutely perfect as a bride for him. At the time it was thought Charles’s bride must be a virgin, an aristocrat and a member of the Church of England. Now, we should remember that by the 1980s, after the 1960s sexual revolution and the introduction of the contraceptive pill, there were very few aristocratic virgins around, and as time went by – Charles was by this point in his 30s – they were getting fewer and fewer. “So, here was this girl who appeared to be absolutely lovely; perfect marriage material. And she appeared to be very uncomplicated. She was fresh and naïve and full of the joys of life. Or so it seemed.” But, says Junor, pressure began to mount on Charles and Diana almost immediately. “Ever since Charles was around the age of 18 the press had been looking at every girlfriend and asking, ‘could this be our next queen?’. They delved into the background of all of these women, which put an awful lot of them off. It was very difficult for Charles to meet and get to know somebody. And this is exactly what happened with Diana: she met Charles and almost immediately the press discovered that he was seeing her. The paparazzi camped outside the door to her flat in London; everywhere she went she was photographed and harassed. It was impossible for the two of them to get to know one another in any sort of ‘normal’ way.” Charles was also under pressure from his father, Prince Philip, to stop ‘playing the field’ and get married. It was time for Charles, who was now in his 30s, to settle down and find a wife, his father thought. “The bottom line being, of course, that every heir requires an heir of his own in order to keep the monarchy going,” says Junor. Did Prince Philip tell Charles to marry Diana? The catalyst came in the form of a memo sent by Prince Philip to his son in early 1981 urging him to make up his mind. You either marry this girl or you let her go, he wrote. But, says Junor, this memo was fatefully misinterpreted by Charles. “The royal family communicates with one another in very strange ways,” she said. “Rather than just picking up the phone or having a chat face-to-face, it was all done through memos. Charles misread his father’s memo: he thought he was being told that he must marry Diana – and so he asked her to marry him.” When did Prince Charles and Diana Spencer get engaged? Charles proposed to Diana on 6 February 1981 at Windsor Castle. But it was a tragic mismatch, says Junor. Charles and Diana had, at this point, barely spent any time together – Diana later claimed that she and Charles had met only 13 times before they became engaged. “And most of that time they'd not spent alone together,” Junor adds. “So they really didn't know one another at all.” Read more | How accurate is The Crown’s portrayal of Charles and Diana’s engagement? Diana’s mental health Diana soon began to struggle in her new role. Aged just 19 and having been living happily in a flatshare in London with a group of girl friends, Diana was taken away from everything she knew and moved into a suite of rooms at Buckingham Palace. “It was awful for her, and lonely,” says Junor. “As soon as she moved into Buckingham Palace she appeared to be a very different girl from the girl she had been at Balmoral – she suddenly became very weepy and jealous of anywhere Charles went and anyone he saw. Her moods went up and down; shooting to stardom in a very short space of time was too much for her. “Meanwhile Charles, who was on a perpetual rollercoaster of engagements that he couldn’t get off, didn't quite know how to cope with this; he didn't know what was going on.” Diana was struggling with her mental health and with the eating disorder bulimia, says Junor. “She’d had a very traumatic childhood; she was a very damaged little girl who had grown into a very damaged young woman,” says the royal biographer. Diana’s parents had endured an unhappy marriage and separated when she was just six years old. Diana Spencer's early life A year-and-a-half before Diana was born, her mother, Frances Ruth Roche, who was already the mother of two girls, Diana’s elder sisters, had given birth to a baby boy who died when he was just 10 hours old. Diana was born 18 months later, in July 1961, followed by a much-wanted male heir: Diana’s younger brother, Charles. When Charles was around the age of two or three, Diana’s mother met Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to the wallpaper fortune built by his father, Norman Shand Kydd. The pair began an affair and later decided to become a couple. “Frances thought she could finally be happy, and she had every intention of taking her children with her,” says Junor. But, tragically, Frances lost custody of Diana and her three siblings following an intervention by her mother, Ruth Roche, Baroness Fermoy, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother. “Appalled that her daughter had run off with a ‘man in trade’, Baroness Fermoy gave evidence in the custody proceedings against her own daughter,” says Junor. “She told the court Frances was a bad mother, and as a result, custody of all four children went to Diana’s father. This is, I believe, why Diana’s mother later became a reclusive and very sad woman. It was because she had lost her children.” Diana, aged just seven and completely unaware of the custody proceedings, was left feeling abandoned and as though her mother did not love her enough to take her with her. “And then she worked out that actually she was a bit of a nuisance,” says Junor. “Her mother and father had wanted a boy, and that boy had died. Diana later told journalist Andrew Morton [who wrote the authorised 1992 biography Diana: Her True Story], her parents had tried for another boy but ended up with Diana. “Diana felt very unloved and unwanted, and she took those feelings into her adult life – she was always desperate to be loved but expected people to abandon her.” Diana’s bulimia Diana struggled with bulimia for many years before seeking professional help. It’s difficult to know when exactly it started, but it was “in full swing” by the time of their honeymoon, says Junor. She may initially have been treated for anorexia. “I think that the eating disorder was a manifestation of a much greater disorder,” says Junor. “Her mental health was poor; she had struggled mentally from childhood. “Bulimia and anorexia are very destructive conditions; they’re very hard to live with,” says Junor. Revelations of Diana’s bulimia were first published in Andrew Morton’s 1992 authorised biography, Diana: Her True Story. She later spoke about her struggle with the condition in her famous 1995 Panorama interview with Martin Bashir. [In 2021, an independent inquiry found that Bashir had used deception to secure the interview] “I think she felt that nobody could help her,” says Junor. She saw various conventional therapists but also turned to a number of alternative, complementary therapists including astrologers and crystal healers.” Wwhere and when did Charles and Diana and get married? The wedding of Charles and Diana married at St Paul’s Cathedral on 29 July 1981 in what has been described as the wedding of the century. “I think Charles and Diana both knew they were making a mistake when they walked down the aisle,” says Junor. “But it would have taken somebody very brave to cancel at that point. Charles had always said that marriage for him must be for life and it was therefore very important that he marry the right girl – ‘If I’m deciding [on] whom I want to live with for 50 years – well, that’s the last decision on which I [would] want my head to be ruled by my heart.’ “So although I don’t think he was actually in love with Diana, I think he thought he could grow to love her. Fundamentally I think he had every intention of making his marriage work. “A lot of people believe that Charles used Diana; that he never loved her and he never had any intention of honouring his marriage vows. They think he just needed his heir and his ‘spare’ and that once that was achieved, he went off with the woman he’d always loved, Camilla. That is very much the story that a lot of people like to believe. “Having spoken to a great many people who were around at the time, I happen to believe that story is completely wrong. I have always felt that it was just a very tragic mismatch; these two people were just completely wrong for one another. I really do not think that Charles used Diana or intended to use Diana, but once he was inside that marriage life was utterly unbearable for both of them.” Read more | Prince Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance Was Charles still seeing Camilla when he married Diana? Charles’s relationship with Camilla had ended when she married Andrew Parker Bowles in the summer of 1973. Camilla settled into her new life as a wife and mother and her friendship with Charles remained platonic in the years that followed. But the pair restarted their affair shortly after the birth of Camilla’s second child, Laura, in early 1978, and in 1979 Charles turned to Camilla for consolation for his grief following the death of Lord Mountbatten. Camilla was “his best friend, his soul mate, and, and after the death of his great-uncle, lover,” writes Marlene Koenig in this article for HistoryExtra. This second affair lasted until Charles’s engagement to Diana in 1981. “Camilla’s husband, unfortunately, was very unfaithful to her, so she was very lonesome in her marriage,” says Junor. “And Charles made her feel good. Who can blame her for enjoying that relationship while Charles was single? But she knew that once Charles became married, the physical side of their relationship would end. She was under no illusion that it would carry on. And when Camilla realised that Diana was jealous of her, she stepped right back.” Tensions were made worse by the fact that Charles had failed to tell Diana about his history with Camilla when they first began dating, says Junor. Early on in his relationship with Diana, they even went to stay with the Parker Bowles’s, but Charles did not disclose the fact Camilla was his ex-girlfriend. Instead, Diana found out on the grapevine “through Buckingham Palace gossip,” says Junor. “As a 19-year-old, Diana would have been hugely upset by that, and very jealous,” she adds. “She probably felt like a bit of a fool”. Read more | Everything you need to know about Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall Diana and The G&F bracelet The last time Charles and Camilla saw one another before he married Diana was just a few days before the wedding. They had one final lunch together, during which Charles gifted Camilla a bracelet inscribed with the letters ‘G’ and ‘F’, which is thought to have stood for ‘Gladys’ and ‘Fred’ – their nicknames for one another. Shockingly, Diana had discovered the bracelet just two weeks previously, in the office she shared with Charles’s right-hand-man, Michael Colborne. Prince Charles had asked Colborne to buy jewellery as presents for a number of women with whom he had been close during his bachelor years, as a way of thanking them for their companionship. “All the jewellery had been delivered to the office that Diana was sharing with Colborne and put on his desk,” Junor explains. “Colborne was called away to a meeting down the corridor. He left the jewellery on his desk and when he came back he met Diana storming out of the office. He quickly realised she had unpacked the boxes, discovered the bracelet and got into a jealous rage.” Camilla attended Charles and Diana’s wedding but the pair did not then see one another or communicate for nearly five years – apart from when Charles notified her of the birth of his first son, William. Princess Diana's sons: the births of William and Harry In June 1982, less than a year after Diana and Charles married, their first son, Prince William, was born. This was, for the most part, a happy time for the couple, says Junor. “I’ve interviewed people who visited Kensington Palace in the early 1980s – they describe Diana charging about the house playfully looking for William who had run away and hidden under his father’s desk at bedtime. Others describe Charles chasing Diana up the stairs. I think there were definitely good times. Diana would later tell journalist Andrew Morton that the period just before Harry was born [in 1984] was the happiest the couple had had together. “Diana very much enjoyed being a mother, she absolutely loved William and Harry with every fibre of her being. If you are someone who desperately needs love – as, I would argue, Diana did – there’s nothing quite like a baby to fulfil that need. So having children was the best possible thing for Diana.” Tensions in Prince Charles and Princess Diana's marriage But tensions in the marriage were escalating and Diana’s moods were changeable. “She was incredibly complicated,” says Junor. “There were behaviours that she exhibited privately but not publicly, and I think this is why the public has always found it very hard to believe anything other than Diana’s story. Andrew Morton’s biography, for example, is absolutely Diana’s story, but it’s her story, it’s not the story. "The truth is we’ve never heard Charles’s side. Apart from admitting adultery to Jonathan Dimbleby [in his televised 1994 interview] he has never talked about their marriage or criticised his ex-wife in all these years. “Ultimately I think Charles did everything he could to try to make Diana happy. But she wanted 101 per cent of Charles’s attention all the time, and he was just not the man who would ever have been able to give that to her because the bulk of his attention has always gone on his work.” Tensions also arose as the press and public lavished attention on Diana over-and-above Charles. During their 1983 tour of Australia – which features in season four of The Crown – Charles is said to have bemoaned the fact he was being outshone by his wife. Junor, who joined the royal couple on their very first royal tour – of Wales shortly after their honeymoon – says Charles was often overshadowed by Diana to the extent it was “painful to watch”. During royal tours of towns and cities, thousands of people would line both sides of the street and Charles would meet-and-greet those on one side, Diana the other. “There were audible sighs and groans from people on Charles’s side,” says Junor. “They would hand Charles bouquets of flowers and ask him to pass them to his wife.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/10/GettyImages-716770063-9cbe210.jpg" width="5296" height="3511" alt="Prince Charles and Princess Diana's royal tour of Australia, 1983" title="Princess Diana and Prince Charles visit Yandina Ginger Factory in Queensland, Australia, during their 1983 royal tour of Australia. The tour is expected to feature in series 4 of 'The Crown'. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)" /> The press were also “obsessed” with Diana, says Junor. Charles would give a speech about an issue dear to him, such as the environment or a charitable cause, but – much to his frustration – newspaper reports the next day would be dominated by photos of Diana, with commentary on her hairstyle, her weight and her clothes, and often speculation as to whether she was pregnant. There would be no mention of his speech. “After a while, this began to really grate on Charles,” says Junor. “He had spent his whole life being in the spotlight. Members of the royal family do their own engagements, they’re used to being the star of the show. So when Charles suddenly found himself being kicked into the wings, with his wife – for all the stupidest reasons, like a hairstyle – suddenly the star, who could blame him for getting a bit peeved?” Read more about the start of ‘Dianamania’ here Would Diana have had a career if she hadn’t met Charles? “I suspect not,” says Junor. “She was not very well educated. And because she was the product of a divorced couple I think each parent probably spoiled her; I don’t think there was any real discipline in her life. “If she started something and wanted to give up, she gave up: she’d gone to finishing school but didn’t like it, so left; she’d done jobs she hadn’t enjoyed, so she’d given them up. And one thing that the royal family has in spades is discipline; their lives are regimented, and I think Diana found that very difficult. “Diana had left boarding school with no real qualifications at all and she wasn’t a great reader of books. In the late 1970s she studied ballet and briefly taught at the Vacani School of Dance, and she had looked after children briefly as a kindergarten teacher. “She had dabbled in lots of things she liked. But with no qualifications she was never going to go anywhere great. She really didn’t need to work; she had plenty of money. So if she hadn’t met Charles, she probably would have married someone posh and had children, staff and nannies – and an active social life.” What was Diana’s relationship like with the Queen and Prince Philip? To begin with, both the Queen and Prince Philip were very enthusiastic about Diana, says Junor. They’d known her as a child because her family lived at Park House on the Sandringham Estate; her father was an equerry to the Queen. Diana was also a similar age to Prince Andrew and she used to attend parties with him. “When Diana stayed at Balmoral in the summer of 1980, the Queen and Prince Philip thought she was enchanting,” says Junor. For many years Charles kept secret the difficulties he and Diana were having in their marriage. “The Queen and Prince Philip were blissfully unaware,” says Junor. “But as time went by and they came to learn of the problems in the marriage through the press, they became very irritated with her. Diana’s behaviour was damaging the monarchy, and if there’s one thing the Queen cares about above all else, it’s the monarchy. She is safeguarding it for the future; that’s the prime task for any monarch.” Read more | Did the Queen really forbid Charles and Diana from divorcing, as is shown in The Crown? When did Charles and Diana’s marriage break down? When did Charles start his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles? Diana would later tell Andrew Morton that she realised her marriage to Charles was over around the time their second son, Harry, was born, in 1984. According to Diana she was crushed by comments Charles supposedly made following the birth. “Something inside of me died,” the princess told Morton. By 1986 the marriage had collapsed and Charles was at what Penny Junor describes as “a critical sort of low”. Two mutual friends, concerned for Charles, independently contacted Camilla and urged her to reach out to him. She picked up the phone to Charles and their friendship restarted from there. “Some years later Charles would confirm that Mrs Parker Bowles was a good friend, but insisted he had been faithful to Diana until their marriage had ‘irretrievably broken down’,” writes Marlene Koenig. Charles and Camilla first saw one another again in 1986 when Charles invited her and her husband, Andrew, for tea at Highgrove. Over the coming months Charles and Camilla’s friendship developed and by around 1987 the pair were romantically involved again, says Junor. “Andrew was still being horribly unfaithful to Camilla and she didn’t feel loved or cherished by him in their marriage,” says Junor. “Meanwhile Diana by this time had had affairs with several men, the first of which was probably with her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee. James Hewitt [a former cavalry officer in the British Army, with whom Diana admitted to having an affair] was also well in the picture by the time Charles went back to Camilla. Charles and Diana were leading very separate lives by this point.” When did Charles and Diana separate and divorce? Charles and Diana lived largely separate lives from around 1986, and Charles’s affair with Camilla continued. In December 1992, after years of speculation by the tabloid press that the marriage was in jeopardy, British prime minister John Major announced that the couple had formally separated. In the summer of 1994, Charles’s interview with Jonathan Dimbleby was televised “in which he admitted infidelity and revealed both a lack of sympathy for Diana… and a worrying distance from his family,” writes Sarah Gristwood in this article for HistoryExtra. This revelation, says Junor, compelled Andrew Parker Bowles to divorce Camilla. The pair announced their divorce in January 1995. A few months later, in November 1995, Princess Diana gave her famous Panorama interview with Martin Bashir in which she told viewers “there were three of us in this marriage – so it was a bit crowded”. Did Charles ask Camilla to leave her husband, as is shown in The Crown? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/09/GettyImages-618242606-8a56be0.jpg" width="3966" height="2820" alt="Martin Bashir interviews Princess Diana for the TV programme 'Panorama', November 1995" title="Martin Bashir interviews Princess Diana in Kensington Palace for the television programme 'Panorama', November 1995. (Photo by © Pool Photograph/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)" /> Within weeks of the interview, the Queen suggested the couple should divorce – and quickly. Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles was dissolved in August 1996, after four years of separation. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/10/GettyImages-51420457-6d65c90.jpg" width="1467" height="991" alt="Britain's national newspaper headlines dated 21 December 1995 report that the Queen has suggested Charles and Diana should divorc" title="Britain's national newspaper headlines dated 21 December 1995 report that the Queen has suggested Charles and Diana should divorce. (Photo by Johnny Eggitt/AFP via Getty Images)" /> On 31 August 1997, Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris. She was 36 years old when she died. In January 1999, Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance together as a couple. Their engagement was announced on 10 February 2005 and they married just a couple of months later on 9 April at a civil wedding at Windsor Guildhall, followed by a Service of Blessing at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. Princess Diana in The Crown Princess Diana first appeared in season 4 of Peter Morgan’s royal drama The Crown, where she was played by Emma Corrin, with Elizabeth Debicki taking on the role in seasons 5 and 6. “As in real life, the collapse of both Anne’s and Andrew’s marriages proved to be a mere sideshow compared to the far more sensational and high-profile split between the Queen’s eldest son and his first wife,” writes historian Tracy Borman of the how the breakdown in Charles and Diana’s marriage is portrayed in season 5. Read on to explore more of the real history of The Crown and events seen on screen: Diana and Charles’s wedding: everything you need to know Prince Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan: what happened and why did he break in? Was the Queen opposed to the Falklands War? The Crown: the real history Why was Lord Mountbatten, Prince Charles’s great-uncle, assassinated? Everything you need to know about King Charles III, formerly Prince Charles Who is Queen Camilla, formerly the Duchess of Cornwall? Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip: 8 milestones in their marriage Who is Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II? This article was written following an interview in November 2020 with royal biographer Penny Junor, who is the author of 10 books on members of the royal family including Charles and Diana: portrait of a marriage (Headline, 1991)
Pomp & power: royal ceremonies through the centuries
Ahead of King Charles’ coronation, Dr Alice Hunt explores how British royals have long used pomp and pageantry to reinforce their power and popularity
Later this week, royal ceremony and spectacle will be deployed in full force for the coronation of King Charles III. But this latest lavish display is nothing new – British monarchs have long used pomp and pageantry to reinforce their power and popularity. Dr Alice Hunt speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about how monarchs down the centuries have used ceremony and ritual – and how it’s gone down with the public.
Seasons 5 and 6 of The Crown, beginning in the early 1990s, depict the gradual decline of one of its most vibrant and controversial characters, charting the failing health of Princess Margaret, once a dazzling beauty and staple of the gossip columns. Anne de Courcy maps Princess Margaret’s life and final years, and considers what might have led to her early death…
In February 1999, the 68-year-old Princess Margaret was holidaying on Mustique, in her private villa Les Jolies Eaux. One morning, she went into the bathroom to wash her hair. Stepping into the bath, she inadvertently turned on the bath taps instead of those of the overhead shower. The water that gushed out of them was, thanks to a faulty thermostat, near-boiling. Janie Stevens, lady-in-waiting and friend to the princess, became alarmed by Margaret’s non-appearance and went into the bathroom, where she found the Princess sitting dazed on the edge of the bath, her feet appallingly scalded and in great pain. The incident, which left Margaret hospitalised, was a well-publicised episode in a broader period of declining health and spirit, a sorry trajectory for the Queen’s sister, once the sparkling face of the royal family. Princess Margaret’s early life <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-1036124564-1b5671e-e1667818467197.jpg" width="619" height="412" alt="Princess Margaret, future Countess of Snowden, 1930 - 2002. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom and sister of Queen Elizabeth II. From The Coronation Book of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, published 1937.(Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Princess Margaret, future Countess of Snowden, 1930 - 2002. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom and sister of Queen Elizabeth II. From The Coronation Book of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, published 1937.(Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> Princess Margaret was born at her mother’s home, Glamis Castle, on 21 August 1930. She was four years younger than her sister, the then Princess Elizabeth. At the time, their parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, had no idea of the future that awaited them. On the podcast | British royal family podcast episodes With an older brother, the future Edward VIII, as heir to the throne, the Duke of York had believed that he and his family (‘we four’, as he often described them) would continue to lead the quiet and peaceful life they so enjoyed. But Edward’s abdication in December 1936 catapulted not only the Duke and Duchess, as the new king and queen, into public roles for the rest of their lives. It also altered the relationship between their two daughters. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-515219070-daa4e7a-e1667818256231.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="The crowned King George VI and Queen Elizabeth with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, acknowledging the cheers of the crowd from the balcony of Buckingham Palace on their return from Westminster Abbey." title="King George VI and Family in Royal Regalia" /> No longer was Margaret simply the younger sister of an older sibling, but of someone who would one day become the most important figure in the kingdom – while she remained, merely, the younger sister. Separation of sisters <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-929229918-c6adaad-e1667818354120.jpg" width="620" height="411" alt="Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II, left, and Princess Margaret, right, driving a pony and trap in Great Windsor Park, England, 1941. Princess Margaret, Margaret Rose, 1930 – 2002, aka Princess Margaret Rose. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Princess Elizabeth, future Elizabeth II, born 1926. Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. From a photograph. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II, left, and Princess Margaret, right, driving a pony and trap in Great Windsor Park, England, 1941" /> Of course, this dramatic change in status was not immediately apparent to the small child Margaret then was. But as she grew older, it was clear that Princess Elizabeth was being groomed as future queen. The children had always done everything together, including lessons under the supervision of their governess Marion Crawford; now Elizabeth was being given twice-weekly tuition in constitutional history by Henry Marten (later Sir Henry) the Vice-Provost of Eton (conveniently close to Windsor Castle); and Margaret was unhappy that she was not included. In fact, all her life she would regret her lack of education and, in later days, when she visited museums, would map out programmes and take notes on objects or paintings she particularly admired, to study them afterwards. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-929227248-16c4cc0-e1667817722235.jpg" width="413" height="538" alt="Princess Margaret, left, and Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II, right, playing a duet at the piano in 1940. Princess Margaret, Margaret Rose, 1930 – 2002, aka Princess Margaret Rose. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Princess Elizabeth, future Elizabeth II, born 1926. Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. From a photograph. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" title="Princess Margaret, left, and Princess Elizabeth, future Queen Elizabeth II, right, playing a duet at the piano in 1940. Princess Margaret, Margaret Rose, 1930 – 2002, aka Princess Margaret Rose. Younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Princess Elizabeth, future Elizabeth II, born 1926. Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. From a photograph. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> As the princesses grew up, the difference in their temperaments was underlined by the differing roles they would play. Elizabeth, naturally more serious and responsible, had begun to realise her destiny, while Margaret was, as their governess ‘Crawfie’ put it, “warm and demonstrative”, with a well-developed sense of mischief. “Lilibet is my pride, Margaret is my joy,” said the King. Both parents, conscious that as the girls grew up, Margaret would be relegated more and more to the background, tried to make it up to her by indulging her, something that may have encouraged a naturally rebellious streak. Coming out When the two princesses respectively reached 18 – the age at which upper-class girls traditionally ‘came out’ – the difference in their roles was apparent. Elizabeth, in those wartime years, was in ATS uniform learning how to maintain and repair vehicle engines. Read more | From balls to Bridgerton: a brief history of debutantes and the social season <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-3362632-2a44b72-e1667817843229.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="13th June 1946: Queen Elizabeth II attending the passing out parade of the ATS whilst wearing full military uniform. (Photo by J. A. Hampton/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)" title="13th June 1946: Queen Elizabeth II attending the passing out parade of the ATS whilst wearing full military uniform. (Photo by J. A. Hampton/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)" /> Margaret, now a pocket Venus with an hour-glass figure, was free to go to the parties that were beginning again and to take on public roles and presidencies such as those of the NSPCC and the Girl Guides Association. She was also in love – with a glamorous war hero sixteen years older than herself. Group Captain Peter Townsend, DSO, DFC and Bar, who had been appointed equerry to her father in 1944, a job in which he saw the Princesses almost every day. After her idolised father’s death in 1952, Townsend must also have represented the security so often found with someone older. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-545350045-1a2a190-e1667820393573.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="(Eingeschränkte Rechte für bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) Margaret Rose, Prinzessin *21.08.1930-09.02.2002+Graefin von Snowdon, GBSchwester von Queen Elizabeth II.- mit Captain Peter Townsend in ueüdafrika- 1955 (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)" title="Margaret Rose, Prinzessin - Graefin von Snowdon, GB/ mit Peter Townsend" /> But Townsend was divorced (although the innocent party) which meant that the Queen, as Head of the Church of England, which in those days forbade the remarriage of divorced persons, could not give her consent. At 25, if Margaret gave up much of her royal status, she would be free to marry. But when the time came, she renounced Townsend in a touching statement. Party years Then came the party years: Margaret in a wasp-waisted Dior dress, long ivory cigarette holder in manicured hand, Margaret in night clubs, Margaret doing the can-can at the American Embassy, Margaret at the centre of a group of friends, her violet-blue eyes smiling first on one suitor, then another – among them Colin Tennant (later Lord Glenconner), ‘Johnny’ Dalkeith and ‘Sunny’ Blandford, heirs to the Buccleuch and Marlborough fortunes and estates respectively; ideal conventional husbands for a princess. Read more | “Cheap men and expensive bottles”: Princess Margaret’s love affairs She was the Diana of her day, one of the two most photographed women in the world (the other was Elizabeth Taylor) and garlanded with the aura of a tragic romance. An unlikely suitor But Princess Margaret did not settle for domesticity with a duke. Instead, in an extraordinary divergence from conventional royal behaviour, she chose a photographer, Antony Armstrong-Jones (later Lord Snowdon) at a time when photography was regarded as a trade rather than a profession. True, Tony, as everyone called him, had been to Eton and danced at debutante balls, but when he took the photographs for Colin Tennant’s wedding to Lady Anne Coke (later Lady Glenconner, she became a lady-in-waiting to the princess), he was sent to the back door tradesman’s entrance and Anne’s father, the Earl of Leicester, derogatorily dubbed him ‘Tony Snapshot’. Unlike other royal courtships, Margaret’s romance with Tony was conducted in such total secrecy that the first the world, and the avid press, knew of it was the announcement of their engagement on the Six O’Clock News. They were married in May 1960. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-3426604-c8fea3f-e1667818578529.jpg" width="620" height="412" alt="1964: Princess Margaret (1930 - 2002) with Lord Snowdon and Viscount Linley at Kensington Palace shortly after the birth of her daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)" title="1964: Princess Margaret (1930 - 2002) with Lord Snowdon and Viscount Linley at Kensington Palace shortly after the birth of her daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)" /> After the birth of Princess Margaret and Antony’s two children, their marriage gradually began to fall apart and, although they did not divorce until 1978, both largely went their separate ways. Around the same time, Margaret began making annual visits to the Caribbean island of Mustique, where its owner, her friend Colin Glenconner, had given her a plot of land on which a private villa was built – Les Jolies Eaux. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-1302429443-7601241-e1667818668402.jpg" width="620" height="404" alt="Princess Margaret, Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner and Anne Tennant, Lady Glenconner wait on the jetty for Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Philip's arrival to Mustique on Britannia in1977 in Mustique. (Photo Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)." title="Princess Margaret, Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner and Anne Tennant, Lady Glenconner wait on the jetty for Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Philip's arrival to Mustique on Britannia in1977 in Mustique. (Photo Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)." /> In 1973, she began an affair with Roddy Llewellyn, a sweet-natured man 17 years her junior. When it was revealed, causing a tabloid scandal, Margaret was vilified; a far cry from her celebrations as a glittering young debutante. Throughout these turbulent years, Margaret’s love and loyalty to the Queen never faltered. Although they had very different personalities, she said they rarely argued. “I’ve only twice ever had a row with my sister,” Margaret told author Andrew Duncan. The two would speak on the telephone most days; what the Queen wished for above all was her sister’s happiness saying, much later, to Anne Glenconner: “It was rather difficult at moments, but I thank you so much for introducing Princess Margaret to Roddy because he made her really happy.” How did Princess Margaret die? As she entered her sixties, Princess Margaret’s health deserted her. She had smoked heavily since her early teens – although she gave up smoking in 1991 – and drunk equally heavily, mostly her favourite whisky, Famous Grouse. Already, at 54, a portion of her left lung had been removed and she suffered from migraines, bronchitis and laryngitis. Additionally, Anne Glenconner had noticed that she would often pause in mid-sentence for a few seconds before carrying on as if nothing had happened. In 1993, she was rushed to hospital with pneumonia. Then 1998, on her annual three-week visit to Mustique, she and the Glenconners were out to dinner with friends when Margaret suddenly slumped over the table. She had suffered a mild stoke but, bar a slight speech impediment, seemed to recover well from it. And then came the trauma of the bathtub scalding. Despite her injuries, Margaret had to leave the villa because her son, David Linley, had let it out almost immediately afterwards. Somehow Janie found them another place but she had to leave shortly thereafter. So, Anne Glenconner took over as the princess’s day-and-night nurse. She wore a buzzer around her neck at all times and, as the princess would allow no one in her room but Anne, whom she summoned constantly, it was a wearing time. Eventually the exhausted Anne rang the Queen to say that either she must have more help or else the princess must be flown home – by Concorde, as she was not strong enough for the much longer regular transatlantic flight. The two were flown home. Margaret’s recovery was slow and only partial, and she suffered a relapse before Christmas 2000. Three months later, in March 2001, she had a further stroke, which left her paralysed down her left side so that she now needed a wheelchair. Her sight was also impaired. Princess Margaret's final moments and death She was last seen in public before Christmas 2001 at the 100th birthday party of Princess Alice, the dowager duchess of Gloucester, sitting in a wheelchair, her face puffy and swollen through medication, her famous eyes hidden behind dark glasses. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2022/11/GettyImages-52107207-edfaa3b-e1667818805886.jpg" width="413" height="619" alt="LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - AUGUST 04: Princess Margaret At Clarence House She Is In A Wheelchair After Suffering A Number Of Strokes. Helping Her Is The Queen Mother's Butler William Tallon. (Photo by Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)" title="Margaret In Wheelchair" /> Soon afterwards, after a further stroke that left her with heart problems, she was rushed to the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London, where she died peacefully in her sleep at 6.30am on 9 February 2002, her son and daughter at her side. Her final years were a sad contrast with the lovely young woman remembered by so many and, by the Queen, as “my beloved sister”. Read more | The Queen's "rebel sister": 13 facts about Princess Margaret Anne de Courcy is a writer, journalist and book reviewer and the author of the authoritative Lord Snowdon biography (Snowdon: the Biography, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008) Read more about the history behind each episode of The Crown season 5: The Crown S5 E1: ‘Queen Victoria Syndrome’ and a second honeymoon The Crown S5 E2: Prince Philip’s ‘keeper of secrets’ and Andrew Norton’s book on Princess Diana The Crown S5 E3: exiled royals and the al-Fayeds The Crown S5 E4: the Queen’s “annus horribilis” and Princess Margaret’s relationship with Peter Townsend The Crown S5 E5 real history: ‘Camillagate’ tapes and a “war council” for the monarchy’s survival The Crown S5 E6 real history: the Romanovs’ murder, and Philip’s “spiritual companionship” The Crown S5 E7 real history: the introduction of Martin Bashir, and a royal education The Crown S5 E8 real history: Diana’s Panorama interview causes fireworks The Crown S5 E9 real history: the divorce settlement between Charles and Diana
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Camilla Parker Bowles was ‘the other woman’ in the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer and played a central role in the couple’s split, in what royal biographer Penny Junor describes as the darkest days of the modern monarchy. Here, we explore the life of Camilla, Queen Consort to King Charles III, and her portrayal in the epic royal drama The Crown…
Camilla, Queen Consort to King Charles III, was born Camilla Rosemary Shand on 17 July 1947 at King's College Hospital, London. Born into a well-to-do family, Camilla grew up on a sprawling country estate in Plumpton, Sussex. Her father, Major Bruce Shand, was Vice Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, while her mother, Rosalind, came from the aristocratic and wealthy Cubitt family – her ancestor Thomas Cubitt made his fortune as a property developer in the 19th century. Her father’s rank meant Camilla and her family lived somewhat regally and socialised with Britain's high society. Camilla Parker Bowles: a biography Maiden name: Camilla Rosemary Shand Born: 17 July 1947, at King's College Hospital, London Married to: King Charles III (m. 2005–present); Andrew Parker Bowles (m. 1973–95) Children: Thomas Henry (born 1974) and Laura Rose (Lopes) (born 1978) Grandchildren: Eliza Lopes (born 2008); Louis Lopes (born 2009); Gus Lopes (born 2009); Lola Parker Bowles (born 2007) and Freddy Parker Bowles (born 2010) Parents: Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand and The Hon Rosalind Maud Shand (née Cubitt) Siblings: Annabel Elliot (born 1949) and Mark Shand (1951–2014) Educated: Dumbrells School in Sussex; Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington; Mon Fertile School in Switzerland and the Institut Britannique in Paris Camilla, the eldest of three children, was first educated at Dumbrells School, a co-ed school in Sussex, and later attended the fashionable independent all-girls boarding school Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington. There she acquired the nickname ‘Milla’ and, according to the journalist and author Christopher Andersen, was known to boast about the fact her great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was the mistress of King Edward VII. “Fellow pupils remember 10-year-old ‘Milla’ waltzing into class and grandly ordering the other children to bow before her. ‘My great-grandmother was the lover of the King,’ she proclaimed. ‘We’re practically royalty’”, writes Andersen in his 2016 book Game of Crowns. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/09/GettyImages-1053860668-c0113f0.jpg" width="4662" height="3502" alt="Camilla Shand and sister Annabelle at the 1952 wedding of Jeremy Cubitt and Diana du Cane" title="Camilla Shand, aged four (left), and her three-year-old sister, Annabelle, at the wedding of Jeremy Cubitt and Diana du Cane in St Mark's church, North Audley Street, London, 17 January 1952. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)" /> Camilla was described as a tomboy and said to possess a “boisterous sense of humour and utter lack of self-consciousness that made her a favourite of both sexes – but especially the boys”. Camilla left Queen’s Gate at the age of 16 with a love of reading – but with only one O Level to her name (in kennel hygiene). When did Camilla meet her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles? After attending finishing schools in Switzerland and France, Camilla returned to London to work briefly as a receptionist at a Mayfair-based decorating firm. It was around this time, in 1965, aged 17, that she first met Andrew Parker Bowles, an officer in the Royal Horse Guards, at a debutante party. The pair proceeded to date on and off for seven years, during which time Andrew was said to also been involved with a number of other women – including Princess Anne, whom he dated briefly in 1970. When did Camilla meet Prince Charles? It was in the summer of 1971 when a 24-year-old Camilla first met Prince Charles, who was then 22. A legend has been fostered that the couple were introduced at a polo match at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor, but, according to Jonathan Dimbleby’s authorised biography, The Prince of Wales (1994), the introduction was in fact made by a mutual friend, Lucia Santa Cruz, daughter of the Chilean ambassador to the United Kingdom, whom Charles had met when he was a student at Cambridge. The monarchy with Tracy Borman Member exclusive | In this five-part series, historian Tracy Borman charts the changing fortunes of the monarchy, from the bloody Norman conquest of 1066 through the upheaval of civil war in the 17th century to the reign of Elizabeth II. Watch all episodes now Charles and Camilla were instantly attracted to one another and over the next 18 months their friendship became a love affair. But “Charles knew that his parents would not approve of the relationship,” writes Marlene Koenig in this article for HistoryExtra. Camilla’s background, while well-to-do, was not sufficiently aristocratic, and Camilla had what Prince Charles’s godmother, Patricia, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, described as a “history”. So it was that as Prince Charles prepared to join HMS Minerva in mid-January 1973 for a seven-month voyage in the Caribbean, he refrained from expressing the depth of his feelings for Camilla. Two months later, in March 1973, Camilla became engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles. Camilla and Andrew married at Guards’ Chapel, Wellington Barracks, on 4 July 1973. The wedding was attended by Princess Anne and Charles’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Charles, meanwhile, sent his regrets from the Minerva. The following year Camilla gave birth to her first child, a son named Thomas Henry, and just under four years later, in January 1978, welcomed a daughter named Laura. Interestingly, Thomas is today not only Prince Charles’s stepson, but also his godson. When did Charles and Camilla begin their extra-marital relationship? In the early years of Camilla’s marriage to Andrew, her relationship with Prince Charles was said to have remained platonic, writes Koenig. But the pair became romantically involved again shortly after the birth of Camilla’s second child, Laura, in early 1978, and in 1979 Charles turned to Camilla for consolation for his grief following the death of his beloved great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten. This second affair lasted until Charles’s engagement to Diana in 1981. Read more | Why did Charles end up marrying Diana instead of Camilla? Camilla remained Charles’s close friend and confidante throughout the 1980s – the pair were seen going to the theatre together and attending many of the same parties – but the prince would insist years later that he had been faithful to Diana until their marriage had “irretrievably broken down”. Charles says he rekindled his affair with Camilla only in 1986, when his marriage was beyond repair. This was five years after he married Diana. In 1989, while attending the 40th birthday party of Camilla’s sister, Annabel Elliot, at the home of Lady Annabel Goldsmith in London, Diana is reported to have confronted Camilla about the nature of her relationship with her husband. According to Andrew Morton’s controversial 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story, Diana told Camilla: “I know what’s going on between you and Charles and I just want you to know that.” Morton claims Camilla told Diana “you’ve got all the men in the world fall in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful children, what more do you want?”, to which Diana responded: “I want my husband.” The real history behind The Crown Want to know even more about the real events from history that inspired the drama? Read more from the experts… Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II: what was their relationship like? Prince Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance Why did Charles and Diana's marriage fail? The Queen’s “rebel sister”: 8 facts about Princess Margaret Buckingham Palace intruder Michael Fagan: what happened and why did he break in? Was the Queen opposed to the Falklands War? The Crown: the real history behind series 1–3 Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s wedding: everything you need to know Why was Lord Mountbatten, Prince Charles’s great-uncle, assassinated? Everything you need to know about Prince Charles Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon: why did their marriage break down? Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip: 8 milestones in their marriage Who is Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II? The affair reportedly continued, and in the summer of 1994 Charles’s interview with Jonathan Dimbleby was televised “in which he admitted infidelity and revealed both a lack of sympathy for Diana… and a worrying distance from his family,” writes Sarah Gristwood in this article for HistoryExtra. The following year, in January 1995, Camilla and Andrew announced their divorce. “Throughout our marriage we have always tended to follow rather different interests, but in recent years we have led completely separate lives,” the couple said in a statement. A few months later, in November 1995, Princess Diana gave her famous Panorama interview with Martin Bashir in which she told viewers “there were three of us in this marriage – so it was a bit crowded”. [In 2021, an independent inquiry found that Martin Bashir used deception to secure the interview.] Read more | Diana: the rebel princess Within weeks of the interview, the Queen suggested the couple should divorce – and quickly. Charles’s marriage to Diana was dissolved in August 1996, after four years of separation. On 31 August 1997, Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/09/GettyImages-618242606-8a56be0.jpg" width="3966" height="2820" alt="Martin Bashir interviews Princess Diana for the TV programme 'Panorama', November 1995" title="Martin Bashir interviews Princess Diana in Kensington Palace for the television programme 'Panorama', November 1995. (Photo by © Pool Photograph/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)" /> When did Charles and Camilla get married? Charles and Camilla kept a low profile in the months after Diana’s death. “Camilla was the wicked witch and marriage wrecker, globally loathed,” said royal expert Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine. “The Queen really wanted him to say goodbye to her [Camilla], and he refused,” says royal biographer Penny Junor, author of The Duchess: Camilla Parker Bowles and the Love Affair that Rocked the Crown. “This man, who has duty written through him, did not obey his mother on this occasion.” Thatcher and Queen Elizabeth II: what was their relationship like? It was not until January 1999, some two-and-a-half-years after his divorce from Diana and more than 18 months after her death, that Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance together as a couple. At a 50th birthday party at the Ritz Hotel in London for Camilla's sister, Annabel Elliott, the pair signalled that their long-running love affair was now official. The couple’s engagement was announced on 10 February 2005, with Camilla wearing a ring widely believed to have come from the Queen Mother's collection. The ring features a five-carat emerald-cut diamond in the centre, and its extensive family heritage means it could be more valuable than more modern royal engagement rings. Camilla and Charles were married on 9 April 2005 at a civil wedding at Windsor Guildhall, followed by a Service of Blessing at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. At the reception, Queen Elizabeth II offered a toast to the newlyweds in which she said: “They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.” Following their marriage, Camilla legally became the Princess of Wales, but because the late Diana, Princess of Wales was primarily known by that name, Camilla instead went by her secondary title, Duchess of Cornwall. When King Charles III takes the throne, the Duchess of Cornwall will automatically become Queen Consort upon his accession – under common law the spouse of a king automatically becomes queen. But because of uncertainty about public opinion, it was suggested that might not always be the case. “At the time of their marriage the official intention was for Camilla to be known as the Princess Consort. But plans for her title became more ambiguous in recent years,” BBC News reported. In a message marking the 70th anniversary of her reign in February 2022, the Queen expressed her desire for Camilla to be known as Queen Consort when Prince Charles becomes king. “Queen Consort” refers to the spouse of a ruling king and would mean “Queen Camilla” as her future title. “The Queen’s intervention means barriers to her becoming Queen have now been removed, and will allow her to have a fully-fledged royal role beside Charles,” BBC News reported. Why was it ever in doubt that Camilla would become Queen? According to constitutional experts at University College London’s Constitution Unit, there were two possible reasons why Camilla might not have assumed the title.“The first is the argument voiced by the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail Online, that Camilla cannot become Queen because her 2005 civil marriage to Prince Charles was not valid. The argument runs as follows: because the Marriage Acts from 1753 have explicitly excepted royal marriages from their provisions, the only valid marriage which a member of the royal family could contract in England was a religious marriage in the Church of England. “The Lord Chancellor in 2005 defended the validity of the Prince’s civil marriage, as did the Registrar General. But if Camilla became Queen, it might provoke further legal challenges. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/09/GettyImages-52611288-9da54e3.jpg" width="3527" height="2379" alt="Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall wedding photograph" title="Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall pose for an official wedding photograph with their children and parents (L-R: Prince Harry, Prince William, Laura and Tom Parker Bowles; Front: Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Bruce Shand) in the White Drawing Room at Windsor Castle following their marriage on 9 April 2005. (Photo by Hugo Burnand/Pool/Anwar Hussein Collection/Getty Images)" /> “The second possible reason is public opinion. In deference to public opinion, Camilla has not assumed the title Princess of Wales. Prince Charles will no doubt have regard to public opinion at the time of his accession, in deciding whether Camilla should become Queen; and he may also want to seek the advice of the government of the day. The fallback position is that Camilla would become Princess Consort as announced at the time of their marriage.” How is Camilla portrayed in The Crown? Camilla’s early relationship with Prince Charles was a key plotline in series three of The Crown, which followed their meeting in the summer of 1971. She was played by Emerald Fennell, who resumed her role in series four. The Crown S4 cast: which real historical figures feature in season four of Netflix’s royal drama – and what did they really look like? In series three of The Crown, Charles confides in Lord Mountbatten that Camilla is “the one” and asks for his great-uncle’s help convincing ‘the family’ to allow them to marry. Horrified at the prospect, Lord Mountbatten is seen conspiring with the Queen Mother to put an end to the relationship; the Queen Mother agrees the idea of marriage is “madness” and says “the sooner that girl is back where she belongs [with Andrew Parker Bowles] the better”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/09/Camilla-604a7f2-2-scaled.jpg" width="2560" height="1837" alt="Emerald Fennell plays Camilla Parker Bowles (then Shand) in 'The Crown'" title="Left: Emerald Fennell plays Camilla Parker Bowles (then Shand) in 'The Crown'. Right: The real Camilla Parker Bowles, pictured with Prince Charles c1975. (Photos by Netflix/Getty Images)" /> But in reality there was no such plot, and it is unlikely that Lord Mountbatten was behind arrangements for Prince Charles’s posting abroad. Christopher Wilson, author of A Greater Love: Charles and Camilla, told the Telegraph “I have never heard [such a plot] suggested at all.” The series also explores Camilla’s on-off relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles, who, it is suggested, is Camilla’s first choice. Princess Anne, following her brief courtship with Parker Bowles, is seen telling her mother in series three that Andrew is “Camilla’s first love and the man she’s still devoted to…. She likes Charles, but she’s obsessed with Andrew.” Camilla and Andrew marry in the penultimate episode of series three, while a distraught Prince Charles, thousands of miles away in the West Indies aboard HMS Minerva, is seen crying alone in his cabin. Season four of The Crown, which landed on Netflix in November 2020, picked up in the late 1970s and featured Charles’s relationship with Princess Diana as a central plotline. The series also explored Charles’s extramarital affairs with Camilla and the love triangle than ensued between Charles, Camilla and Diana. Season four showed Diana’s torturous lunch with Camilla soon after she became engaged to Charles – there, at every turn Diana was reminded of how little she knew her future husband, and how well Camilla did. “Darling, you really know nothing, do you?” The infamous ‘G’ & ‘F’ bracelet – a bracelet Charles had designed for Camilla – also featured. The Crown’s creator Peter Morgan told Esquire: “Charles’s campaign to make Camilla queen is as passionate and as committed and as ruthless, in many ways, as was Henry VIII’s campaign to make Anne Boleyn his queen. More from us Exclusive quizzes for HistoryExtra members from our archives How to marry a monarch The Crown S6: the challenges of telling the story of living royals Five outrageous moments in royal fashion history Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers This article was first published by HistoryExtra in September 2020 and has since been updated
Charles and Camilla: a history of their romance
They met and fell in love in their early twenties, enjoying a “blissful” 18-month romance in which the young Prince Charles pursued Camilla with elaborately worded love notes and late-night telephone chats. Why, then, did he end up marrying Lady Diana Spencer instead? Royal expert Marlene Koenig explores the history of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall’s love affair...
Thirty-four years after their first meeting, the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles were finally married on 9 April 2005. Their long-term relationship as friends and lovers was summed up in The Sunday Telegraph's headline: “Husband and wife – at last.” At the reception at Windsor Castle, Prince Charles's mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in front of 800 guests, offered a toast to the newlyweds. “They have overcome Becher's Brook and The Chair and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I'm very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.” Queen Elizabeth II | 50+ surprising facts about her life and reign Not surprisingly, the Queen, a lover of horses and horse racing, used racing references as she welcomed Camilla into the family: Becher's Brook and The Chair are fences at the Aintree Racecourse, where the Grand National takes place. It was in the summer of 1971, when Prince Charles, then 22, first met Camilla Rosemary Shand, who was 24. A legend has been fostered that the couple were introduced at a polo match at Smith's Lawn in Windsor, but, according to Jonathan Dimbleby's authorised biography, The Prince of Wales (1994), the introduction was in fact made by a mutual friend, Lucia Santa Cruz, daughter of the Chilean ambassador to the United Kingdom, whom Charles had met when he was a student at Cambridge. Who is Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall? | Everything you need to know about Prince Charles’s wife “Instant attraction” It was reportedly an “instant attraction” between Charles and Camilla. During an 18-month period their friendship blossomed into a love affair. They shared a lot in common, including an appreciation for the comedy of The Goon Show, a BBC radio series devised by Spike Milligan. Charles also liked that Camilla was very much at home in “the country with horses and hunting.” Camilla had been involved in an on-and-off relationship with Andrew Parker Bowles, an officer in the Royal Horse Guard, that began when she was 17. But Andrew was said to have a roving eye and was involved with several women at the same time. In 1970 he dated Charles's younger sister, Princess Anne, as they shared a common interest in horses, but marriage between the pair was out of the question as Andrew was Roman Catholic. Why does Britain have a royal family? Charles pursued Camilla with “elaborately worded love notes” and late-night telephone chats. He thought about proposing marriage in November 1972 but was hesitant about taking the next step, according to Dimbleby. Charles, who played his cards close to his chest, realised that he was “too uncertain of his feelings” to ask Camilla to marry him. Their last weekend together was spent at the Hampsire estate Broadlands in mid-December 1972. His great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was the only family member in whom Charles had confided about Camilla. Charles knew that his parents would not approve of the relationship. This view was supported by his godmother, Patricia, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, who later told biographer Gyles Brandreth that the marriage “wouldn't have been possible, not then. Camilla had a ‘history’ – and you didn't want a past that hung about.” Charles wrote to Lord Mountbatten lamenting that this was “the last time I shall see her for eight months”, after he and Camilla parted after their final weekend together. Read more | Lord Mountbatten: Did Prince Philip’s uncle attempt to lead a coup against Harold Wilson’s government? Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles As a part of his naval service career, Charles joined the HMS Minerva in mid-January 1973 for a seven-month voyage in the Caribbean. He was in the West Indies when he received the news that Camilla had become engaged to Andrew Parker Bowles on 15 March. He wrote to his great-uncle of his disappointment that “such a blissful, peaceful and mutually happy relationship” would come to an end. Charles’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and Princess Anne attended Camilla and Andrew's wedding at Guards’ Chapel, Wellington Barracks on 4 July 1973. Charles sent his regrets as he was still serving on the Minerva. Arrangements could have been made to fly back to London for the wedding, but it would probably have been difficult for Charles to watch Camilla walk down the aisle and marry Andrew. As Camilla settled into her new life as Mrs Parker Bowles, raising their two children, Tom and Laura, in the country, her friendship with Charles remained platonic for some time. The years that followed, which Charles would later refer to as his “footloose” years, were a time when he was linked with numerous women, most notably Davina Sheffield, Amanda Knatchbull, Anna Wallace and Lady Sarah Spencer – Diana’s sister. Many believed that Davina Sheffield had a real chance to marry Charles, but this was scuppered when a former boyfriend spoke to the press about their relationship. A second affair Charles was in Iceland when he learned that Lord Mountbatten had been assassinated by the IRA in August 1979. It was with Camilla Parker Bowles that he sought consolation for his grief. Indeed, Camilla was the only person to whom he could talk about anything. She was his best friend, his soul mate, and, and after the death of his great-uncle, lover. This second affair – which royal biographer Penny Junor believes started the year previous, in early 1978, shortly after the birth of Camilla’s second child, Laura – lasted until Charles’s engagement to Diana in 1981. Read more | Charles and Diana: a history of their marriage In 1980, the duchy of Cornwall (Charles, as the eldest son of the sovereign, is the Duke of Cornwall), purchased Highgrove House, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire, as a country home for the Prince of Wales. The estate was only 11 miles away from Bolehyde Manor, Camilla and Andrew’s home in Wiltshire. The purchase of the estate was an investment in his future, as Charles wanted nothing more than a “normal family life,” according to Lady Mountbatten. How did Prince Charles and Diana meet? Why did he marry Diana? Charles first took notice of Lady Diana Spencer in 1977 – he thought her “jolly” when he visited Althorp, the Spencer estate, in 1977, when he was dating her older sister, Lady Sarah. This relationship came to an end in early 1978: Lady Sarah and Charles were skiing at the Swiss resort Klosters when Sarah decided to have lunch with two British journalists. There she talked about her drinking and her battles with anorexia, but perhaps most damaging of the “kamikaze remarks”, as the journalist Tina Brown described her interviews, was her discussion of the Prince of Wales. “He is a fabulous person but I am not in love with him,” she said. “And I wouldn’t marry anyone I didn’t love, whether he were a dustman or the King of England.” Read more | Why is Charles the ‘Prince of Wales’? Shortly before one of the interviews was published in Woman’s Own, Lady Sarah told Charles she had spoken to the press. Charles’s response was cold and right to the point: “You’ve just done something extremely stupid.” Lady Sarah did not realise it at the time, but she had inadvertently made it possible for Charles to pursue her younger sister, Diana. Later that year, both Lady Sarah (who was by now Charles’s ex-girlfriend) and Lady Diana received invitations to Charles’s 30th birthday party at Buckingham Palace. The Parker Bowles were also guests at the party. In the summer of 1980, Philip de Pass, a friend of Diana’s, invited her to a house party that his parents were hosting at their home, New Grove, near Petworth. He added that the Prince of Wales was the guest of honour. It was at de Pass’s house party where Charles first saw Diana Spencer as a potential girlfriend. Sitting next to each on a bale of hay at a post-polo barbeque, Diana broached the topic of Lord Mountbatten’s funeral and told Charles that “it was the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched, I thought, ‘It’s wrong, you’re lonely – you should be with somebody to look after you’”. Read more | Diana: the rebel princess It was Diana’s innocence and her sympathetic nature that first caught Charles’s attention. They saw each other, on and off, for the next few months. In the first week of August 1980, Charles invited her to join his party on the royal yacht, Britannia, for the sailboat races at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. One month later, Diana was invited to Balmoral, where she stayed with her sister, Jane (Lady Jane Fellowes) who was married to the queen’s assistant private secretary, Robert Fellowes, as they had a grace-and-favour home on the Balmoral estate. This invitation came from the Queen at Charles’s request. Diana later recalled: “I was frightened because I had never stayed at Balmoral, and I wanted to get it right.” Read more | Why has the British monarchy survived? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2019/10/GettyImages-73389802-fff7275.jpg" width="2228" height="3600" alt="Lady Diana Spencer, 1980" title="Lady Diana Spencer leaves the Ritz Hotel in London after attending Princess Margaret's 50th birthday party, November 1980. This is thought to be one of the early pictures taken of her as rumours began of her romance with Prince Charles. (Photo by Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images)" /> Others at Balmoral included the Parker Bowles and other friends of the Prince of Wales. Charles sought out Camilla’s advice as he weighed the pros and cons of a marriage with Diana. On paper, Diana had all the right attributes: daughter of an earl with royal connections, and she did not have ‘a past’ – i.e. there were no worries about former boyfriends flogging their stories to the tabloids. The Crown S4 cast: what did the real historical figures look like? Yet, Charles had his doubts but as the media frenzy grew, his father, Prince Philip, took matters into his own hands. He sent his son a letter advising him that it was time to make a decision: propose to Diana or let her go. Charles wanted to do the right thing for “this Country and for my family”. He proposed to Diana at Windsor Castle on 6 February 1981. She accepted without hesitation, although she had already suspected that Camilla Parker Bowles was more than Charles’s best friend. The ‘G’ & ‘F’ bracelet and Diana’s lunch with Camilla One of Camilla’s friends told biographer Gyles Brandreth that Camilla “had encouraged Charles to marry Diana,” yet Diana was suspicious of Camilla’s guidance. But Charles, according to Dimbleby, tried to reassure Diana that Camilla had once been an intimate friend but now, as he was going to marry her, “there was, and there would be, no other woman in his life”. Both Charles and Camilla accepted that their affair had come to an end, yet they remained close friends as Camilla remained a touchstone and confidant. Wedding of the century In what many describe as the wedding of the century, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer were married on 29 July 1981 at St Paul’s Cathedral. The couple had two sons, William (born in 1982) and Harry (born in 1984), before the first fissures in their marriage began to appear. Read more | Princess Diana: a "modern" mother who ripped up the rule book Apart from their children, Charles and Diana had few shared interests. By 1986 the marriage had collapsed. Two mutual friends, concerned for Charles, independently contacted Camilla and urged her to reach out to him. She picked up the phone to Charles and their friendship restarted from there. Some years later Charles would later confirm that Mrs Parker Bowles was a good friend, but insisted he had been faithful to Diana until their marriage had “irretrievably broken down.” Read more | When royals marry ‘commoners’: a brief history Charles's marriage to Princess Diana was dissolved in 1996. A year later, Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris. It was not until January 1999 that Charles and Camilla made their first public appearance together. Their engagement was announced on 10 February 2005, followed by the civil wedding and Service of Blessing at Windsor on 9 April, where they acknowledged their “manifold sins and wickedness”. Read more | Did Charles ask Camilla to leave her husband? More than three decades after they had first met, Charles and Camilla were finally together in the “winner's circle”. Marlene A Eilers Koenig is an internationally recognised expert on British and European royalty. She is an academic librarian and author of Queen Victoria's Descendants (Rosvall Royal Books, 1997 & 2004). To find out more, visit royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com or follow Marlene on Twitter @royalmusing This article was first published by HistoryExtra in November 2019