‘Truly unthinkable’ royal photo emerges

With many of the world’s most famous faces converging on London for the coronation, one picture has quietly made an extraordinary statement.

Britain's Camilla walks wearing a modified version of Queen Mary's Crown during the Coronation Ceremony inside Westminster Abbey in central London. Picture: AFP

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Around 30 years ago, with the world reeling from then-Prince Charles’ publicly admitting to an affair during his marriage to Diana, Camilla Parker-Bowles was just about the most hated woman in Britain.

So despised was the infamous “other woman” by the public, she was allegedly even pelted with bread rolls outside a local supermarket.

Here’s the thing: the loaf attack has never actually been confirmed – but its very plausibility speaks volumes to just how much people loathed Camilla.

And it wasn’t just the public out for blood: there was fury within the royal family itself, with the most infamous mistress in Britain blamed for shaming the institution and compromising Charles’ moral authority as a future king.

Three decades on, what has just unfolded was, for so long, truly unthinkable.

Queen Camilla – not Princess Consort, not Queen Consort, but Queen Camilla – has just been crowned alongside her husband, King Charles.

This picture is the culmination of a truly staggering public redemption.

Britain's Camilla walks wearing a modified version of Queen Mary's Crown during the Coronation Ceremony inside Westminster Abbey. Picture: Richard POHLE / POOL / AFP

It happened so slowly and so subtly that we barely even noticed, but here we are: Camilla’s long journey from hated homewrecker to beloved royal is complete.

When, exactly, did the former Mrs Parker Bowles leap across that symbolic finish line?

Rather than at this historic crowning moment, the real moment of victory was probably last February, when Queen Elizabeth – who once reportedly referred to her son’s mistress as “that wicked woman” – put out a personal statement confirming her “sincere wish” that her daughter-in-law be known as Queen Consort, giving her one of the highest seals of approval on Earth.

Camilla and Charles in 2002. Picture: David Cheskin – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Following the Queen’s death, Buckingham Palace even went a step further to test the waters ahead of the coronation and dropped the “Consort” altogether.

Yes – the very same institution that once allegedly hid her from view at all costs, forcing her to sneak in and out of secret entrances, hidden underneath a coat.

The exact circumstances surrounding the future King and Queen’s first ever meeting are disputed, but what is certain is that in 1970, a young Camilla Shand completely entranced a young Prince Charles when they crossed paths during a polo match at Windsor Great Park.

There are two popular stories circulating around their first conversation. In one version, shortly after introducing them, their mutual friend Lucia Santa Cruz joked: “Now, you two, be very careful. You’ve got genetic antecedents.”

(Antecedents means ancestors, for those that were unsure).

In an even more widely-believed account, it was Camilla herself who dropped the bold line to the future king of England.

“My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-great-grandfather. I feel we have something in common,” the cheeky young woman is reported to have said.

It’s claimed the pair dated briefly in the early seventies, before Charles joined the Royal Navy and both eventually went on to marry other people: Camilla, to Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973, and Charles, of course, to Diana Spencer in 1981.

Charles and Diana in 1986. Picture: John Shelley Collection/Avalon/Getty Images

However, Camilla and Charles allegedly sparked up their relationship again just a few years later, in 1986, despite both raising families with their significant others.

Seven years later, one of the hugest embarrassments to ever hit the royal family emerged when an intimate conversation was leaked, confirming the couple’s affair.

The recording, taken in 1989, but not released until 1993, featured a deeply personal conversation between Charles and Camilla – including the infamous "Tampax” line – and set Camilla’s unpopularity to an all time low.

In a seeming attempt at a mea culpa, Charles agreed to an interview with British broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby in 1994, at which time he and Diana had been separated for two years, and admitted that he’d been unfaithful to his wife.

However, he added, it was only when the marriage had become “irretrievably broken down, us both having tried”.

The situation for Charles and Camilla was later made much worse by the infamous 1995 interview for BBC One’s Panorama, where Diana revealed: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”

She also reportedly told biographer Andrew Morton that she’d even confronted Camilla about the affair, but to no avail.

“I do know what is going on,” Diana recalled telling her husband’s mistress. “Don’t treat me like an idiot”.

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, slowly, times have changed.

The longtime lovers finally wed in 2005. Picture: Hugo Burnand/Pool/Getty Images

Considered 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 a begrudging respect for his longtime partner.

Charles debuted Camilla as his girlfriend for the first time in 1999, and 24 years on, she has just been crowned alongside him as his wife.

The Queen formerly known as Camilla Shand, then Camilla Parker Bowles, has not only shed the skin of a royal outcast, but she’s cemented her place firmly in the sacred halls of history – rather than infamy.

It’s the culmination of a truly extraordinary rehabilitation.

Originally published as ‘Truly unthinkable’ royal photo emerges