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How Camilla’s ‘Magic Spell’ Won Prince Charles’s Heart




© Associated Press Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall has a magnetism all her own—and Prince Charles isn’t the only one who felt the pull.
“I’ve noticed how men always congregated around her,” a source in royal circles tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “Clearly when people meet her she has that je ne sais quoi. She does have that magic spell that draws people in.” Adds Christopher Wilson, author of the 1994 biography A Greater Love: “What she had was chutzpah.”
As she approaches her 70th birthday on July 17, the new biography The Duchess: The Untold Story highlights Camilla’s side of the royal love triangle between her, Charles and Princess Diana.
Diana famously called Camilla the “third person” in her marriage to Charles. © TIM GRAHAM/Getty Images
Friends describe Camilla as “gentle and honest,” but there is a recognition, too, of her steely side as she faced heavy criticism for her role in the demise of Charles and Diana’s marriage. “The love is obviously strong, and she went through a lot to be by his side,” says the source.
The grandmother of five never “grumbles” about the harsh attention she received, says her friend, author Jilly Cooper. And 12 years into their marriage, Camilla and Charles have found their happy-ever-after. “They have a terrific sense of humor,” says Cooper. “They laugh a huge amount. I just think they’re people who love each and are good for each other.”
Related slideshow: The Royals' guide to divorce 

  • Slide 1 of 10: Perhaps the most famous royal divorce in history (or at least, the last 100 years) was that of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which was finalized in 1995. Their 1981wedding appeared to be the start of a modern fairy tale, but there were cracks in the relationship from the beginning. For starters, Charles was Diana's senior by 13 years, and the two shared little in the way of interests. And as we know now, Charles still carried a torch for his old girlfriend, the then-Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana famously said of Charles's relationship Camilla, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/royals/interviews/bbc.html">"There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."</a> Both were unfaithful throughout their 14-year union, but stuck with it because, as Diana said, they "didn't want to disappoint the public." They separated in 1992, and though it wasn't certain if they would ever eventually divorce, after Diana's famous Panorama interview, the Queen wrote to the couple to urge them to do so. Sadly, just two years after their divorce was finalized, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.
  • Slide 2 of 10: The same year of Charles and Diana's separation, another royal marriage came to an end. Princess Anne, the Queen's second child, finalized her divorce from her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips, after they separated back in 1989. Initially, the palace said the couple had no plans to divorce, but that attitude quickly changed. Their relationship was said to be <a href="http://people.com/archive/with-no-hope-for-a-happy-ending-princess-anne-brings-her-storybook-marriage-to-a-close-vol-32-no-12/">lacking in love and little shared time</a> together — and it was revealed that both were unfaithful. Princess Anne recovered quickly from the split: She married her second and current husband, Timothy Laurence, later that year.
  • Slide 3 of 10: The Queen's third child, Prince Andrew, married Sarah Ferguson, whom he knew from childhood, in July 1986. Their marriage, however, only lasted six years before they separated in 1992. The year was so traumatic for the Queen, who saw three of her children's marriages crumbling, as well as a fire in her home at Windsor Castle, that she famously called it her "annus horribilis" in a speech. Despite the divorce, the two remain close. This past October, Ferguson <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2043149/sarah-ferguson-reveals-she-and-ex-hubby-prince-andrew-are-still-together-despite-divorce/">said in an interview</a> that she and Andrew "have never really left each other."
  • Slide 4 of 10: Though this couple never split, they impacted the divorce issue for royals more than anyone since King Henry VIII. King Edward VII ascended the throne in 1936, but reigned for just 11 months before abdicating to marry his American girlfriend, Wallis Simpson. His marriage to Simpson caused a constitutional crisis because Simpson was divorced — and was then seeking a second divorce. Parliament's refusal to accept Simpson as Queen consort led Edward to abdicate. he and Simpson married the next year, and remained together until his death in 1972.
  • Slide 5 of 10: Princess Margaret's romantic history is brimming with divorce-fueled drama. The first came in the early years of her sister Queen Elizabeth's reign, when she wanted to marry the divorced Peter Townsend. After years of back and forth, disapproval from the British Cabinet, waiting, and even a potential plan crafted by the Queen and then-Prime Minister Anthony Eden, Margaret announced the two would not marry. She did marry eventually, in 1960, to Antony Armstrong-Jones, a photographer, in the first-ever televised royal wedding. Though they had two children and lived a glamorous life, socializing with celebrities, through much of the '60s, by the '70s their marriage was in a fragile state amid infidelity on both sides. After notorious photos surfaced of Margaret <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/440804/The-original-royal-rebel-Princess-Margaret-and-her-island-of-Mustake">with a man 17 years her junior, Roddy Llewellyn</a>, in their bathing suits on the island of Mustique, her marriage to Armstrong-Jones began to publicly crumble. They were divorced by 1978, but it wasn't without controversy. It was the first divorce for a senior member of the royal family since 1901 (Princess Victoria of Edinburgh). According to Christopher Warwick's biography, Princess Margaret: A Life of Contrasts, she nearly lost her place on the civil list — people who receive money from the government, like many royals — and members of parliament branded her a "royal parasite." She never married again.




  • Slide 10 of 10: Theirs was the original royal divorce: King Henry VIII famously split with the Catholic church in 1534 in order to divorce the first of his six wives, Katherine of Aragon, who had not become pregnant with a male heir throughout their marriage. After the Pope denied Henry's request for a divorce, the monarch established his own Church of England and changed the course of world history.
Slide 1 of 10: Perhaps the most famous royal divorce in history (or at least, the last 100 years) was that of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which was finalized in 1995. Their 1981wedding appeared to be the start of a modern fairy tale, but there were cracks in the relationship from the beginning. For starters, Charles was Diana's senior by 13 years, and the two shared little in the way of interests. And as we know now, Charles still carried a torch for his old girlfriend, the then-Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana famously said of Charles's relationship Camilla, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/royals/interviews/bbc.html">"There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded."</a> Both were unfaithful throughout their 14-year union, but stuck with it because, as Diana said, they "didn't want to disappoint the public." They separated in 1992, and though it wasn't certain if they would ever eventually divorce, after Diana's famous Panorama interview, the Queen wrote to the couple to urge them to do so. Sadly, just two years after their divorce was finalized, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.

1/10 SLIDES © Tim Graham/Getty Images

PRINCE CHARLES PRINCESS DIANA


Perhaps the most famous royal divorce in history (or at least, the last 100 years) was that of the Prince and Princess of Wales, which was finalized in 1995. Their 1981wedding appeared to be the start of a modern fairy tale, but there were cracks in the relationship from the beginning. For starters, Charles was Diana's senior by 13 years, and the two shared little in the way of interests. And as we know now, Charles still carried a torch for his old girlfriend, the then-Camilla Parker Bowles. Diana famously said of Charles's relationship Camilla, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." Both were unfaithful throughout their 14-year union, but stuck with it because, as Diana said, they "didn't want to disappoint the public." They separated in 1992, and though it wasn't certain if they would ever eventually divorce, after Diana's famous Panorama interview, the Queen wrote to the couple to urge them to do so. Sadly, just two years after their divorce was finalized, Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris in August 1997.

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