The idea of that being relevant as late as the 1980s was mindboggling to me even then. Vetting background for scandal, yes. Picking a virgin? I was baffled.
It wasn’t a virgin as much as not having had a serious boyfriend who might sell salacious stories about the new Princess of Wales to the press
A non-serious boyfriend might be a better source of salacious stories, and less loyal to her.
There was also the matter of pedigree. Diana’s was not only impeccable, but older than the Royal family. The last time a Prince of Wales married a commoner, it didn’t go well (and led to Charles’ grandpa becoming king).
Nitpick: I’m not sure a man holding the title of Prince of Wales at the time has ever married a commoner before Charles wed Diana. Possibly 1361, when Edward the Black Prince married Countess Joan of Kent, who was probably legally a commoner under the rules then in effect, although she was his cousin and a granddaughter of Edward I. (There’s also the Old Pretender’s marriage to Maria Clementina Sobieska, a granddaughter of the King of Poland, in 1719, and George IV’s marriage to Maria Fitzherbert in 1785, legally void under British law.) Edward VIII had already abdicated and been created Duke of Windsor when he married Wallis Simpson, owing to the difficulty that her divorce from Ernest Simpson did not become final until May 1937.
I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that Diana’s pedigree was older than the Royal Family, either. The Spencers trace their ancestry back to the 15th century, but Charles can trace his to the eighth-century Kings of Wessex.
But a lot easier to discredit.
My point was that the last time in recent memory that a guy who had been a playboy Prince of Wales wanted to marry a commoner with a past, it didn’t work out so well. So Diana’s impeccable pedigree was part of her appeal to the Royal family.
Regardless of how popular that is or isn’t, I’d think that that would be the worst power for a President, GG, or Monarch to hold by itself (along with minor other powers I’d assume). Having veto power is simultaneously too much and too little power. Either limit them to forming a government, declaring elections, and acting in emergencies, or give them some executive power. Having just the powers of head of state along with veto power would give them just enough power to whet their appetite for power.
(If QEII had only those actual powers of elected parliamentary presidents, instead of having those powers in name only, she could have stopped shorter Boris’ determined efforts to time elections to force the hardest of hard euro crashes. It worked out okay but not because of any theoretical “backstop” she could use to prevent those shenanigans. But those are the sort of things that would happen rarely, as opposed to at the minimum several times a year in the case of veto combined with political clashes.)
Ironically Andrew Parker Bowles has never said anything to the press about his ex-wife. One can only imagine the kinds of offers he’s gotten.
Camilla is allegedly a descendant of Edward VII, although on the bastardy side, does that make her a commoner?
Alice Frederica Edmonstone, Camilla’s great-grandmother, married George Keppel, son of William Coutts Keppel, on June 1, 1891. After having given birth to a first daughter Violet on June 6, Alice became in 1898 and during the next twelve years the mistress of The Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII of England on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.
Camilla’s great-grandmother was mistress to Edward VII.
(Camilla’s family tree is shown at the link.)
Wasn’t Camilla Catholic, too? Doubly unsuitable.
And I heard it was the Queen Mum who was hot on having a virgin Princess of Wales. So, yeah, 19th century thinking.
Camilla was baptized and raised an Anglican. Her first husband is Catholic and her children were raised as Catholics but she never converted. Regardless, she was in no way a Catholic when she was first involved with Charles.
Thanks!
If Camilla outlives Charles, will she be known for the rest of her life as the Queen Stepmother?
…and that’s the story of why Charles didn’t get the voice role of young Simba in that movie…
As a queen dowager she would be known as Queen Camilla. The only reason Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was specifically styled Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother wad to avoid confusion with her daughter with the same name.
Hardly! My guess would be, it would just be Queen Camilla, just as previously people referred to Queen Mary and Queen Alexandra. Using “Queen Mother” as an official title was a way of distinguishing one Queen Elizabeth from another. I believe an earlier generation used Queen Dowager for Queen Adelaide, so I suppose that might be a possibility. But of course the media could invent whatever they like.
I thought the major problem at the time was not that Wallis had a past (i.e. was not anything like a virgin) but that she was married, being unfaithful to her lawful husband with the king, and would be divorced before she could marry the king. That seems very different from Charles marrying Camilla while they were both young and previously unmarried. And if “the firm” was bowing to pressure from sweet old Queen Mum (as if!) they had no-one but themselves to blame for the outcome.
Camilla and Charles got completely screwed over by their families. They were essentially forbidden to marry by the royal family so they broke up when Charles went to serve in the military. Meanwhile, Camilla went back to dating Parker-Bowles and her father apparently placed an engagement notice in the Times which forced them to get engaged for the sake of appearances I guess. It was many backwards years ago. Meanwhile, Charles assumed that he would have to marry a woman he didn’t really love and would cheat on her like his father did.
I’m not the biggest fan of Charles but I do note that Charles and Camilla have actually been married longer than Charles and Diana were married, and of course they were together for longer but waited to actually marry.
tl/dr: Back in the 1970s, the royal family had some messed up ideas about who was suitable to marry. Charles and Camilla clearly love each other and should have been allowed to marry then. From everything I have read, she is a lovely person and I prefer her to Charles.