How Queen Camilla really felt during coronation

Camilla’s former daughter-in-law has revealed how stressed the new Queen was during the coronation and spilled on her “hate years” after Diana died.

Queen Camilla. Picture: Andrew Milligan - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Queen Camilla’s former daughter-in-law has lifted the lid on her nerves on the day of her and King Charles’ coronation in May.

Sara Parker Bowles – who was married to Camilla’s son, Tom, from 2005 until 2018 – revealed to The Times UK that the new monarch was extremely anxious ahead of the Westminster Abbey ceremony.

“Camilla was really, really nervous. She wanted the people that she loved around her. [The king] wasn’t nervous at all. But Camilla didn’t ask for any of this,” she told the publication.

“She’s the human face of the royal family because she’s not part of it. You need those outsiders, really.”

The Queen was “really nervous” on the day of the coronation ceremony, according to her former daughter-in-law. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Sara attended the event with her two children, Lola and Freddy, with her 13-year-old son also serving as one of his grandmother’s Pages of Honour and appearing on the Buckingham Palace balcony afterwards for the traditional photo opportunity.

“I was quite obsessively watching him. But I knew by then he was going to be OK, that I could sort of let go,” Sara said.

“He wanted to go in the gold carriage, but he didn’t get to. Then his face on the balcony — I could see he was just like, whoa! My favourite part of the whole day was that he did a little wave that he wasn’t supposed to.”

She was crowned in Westminster Abbey with her grandson, Freddy, serving as a Page of Honour. Picture: Yui Mok - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Sara, who has maintained a good relationship with her ex-husband and his mother despite their divorce, also opened up about how challenging life was for Camilla in the years following Diana’s death.

“It was still the hate years. [Camilla] wasn’t accepted at all,” she told The Times.

“She didn’t talk about it. She was just very brave and uncomplaining. Tom was worried it would happen all over again when the Queen died, but it has been the opposite.”

Tom Parker Bowles married Sara in 2005. Picture: MJ Kim/Getty Images

She added that the rocky patch was worth it in the end.

“Camilla was always in it for the right reasons. It’s not right for someone to have gone through what she did, but it’s come to fruition — not being Queen, but to be with the person that you love.”

When Diana tragically died in 1997, with emotions running high across the globe, the public was united in its grief – and rage at Charles and Camilla. But slowly, times have certainly changed.

Considering the steadying presence in Charles’ otherwise often-isolating life as both a Prince of Wales and now a monarch, his very own “strength and stay”, people have largely come to develop at least a begrudging respect for his longtime partner, which culminated in the celebration of her crowning alongside him in May.

Originally published as How Queen Camilla really felt during coronation