Camilla's ex-husband attends coronation despite her 20-year affair
It is just under 90 years since a King was forced to abdicate his throne because he wanted to marry a divorced woman.
Things have certainly changed. Not only are King Charles III and Queen Camilla both divorced – but her ex-husband is even coming to the coronation.
The announcement that Andrew Parker Bowles would be one of the relative few to get the golden ticket to the coronation surprised even royal watchers. There is certainly no precedent.
When Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953 there were 30,000 divorcees a year and divorcees were not meant to get too close to royal circles – which a few years later prevented Princess Margaret from marrying the dashing but divorced war hero pilot-turned-royal aide Group Captain Peter Townsend.
The Crown fans will recall how the Queen did not want to invite Jackie Kennedy’s sister Lee Bouvier to a State Visit dinner for the American president and his first lady in 1961 because she was divorced.
But the charming but rakish Andrew Parker Bowles, 83, has always been a figure who makes his own rules.
Andrew Parker Bowles remains a fixture in his former wife’s life, and has long been part of royal circles. The then Prince Charles was part of the wedding of his and Camilla’s daughter, Laura, in 2006, with their son Tom Parker Bowles standing behind the future king. AP
Parker Bowles and his former wife were both on hand for the launch of one of their son Tom Parker Bowles’ cookery books, along with daughter Laura Lopes. David M. Benett
And also his five grandchildren from his marriage to Camilla – Lola and Freddy Parker Bowles, aged 15 and 13, and twins 13-year-old twins Louis and Gus Lopes and their sister Eliza, 15 – are all due to have starring roles at the coronation.
The boys were all pages to the Queen while all five are said to be holding the canopy over her as she is anointed with oil in the most sacred part of the ceremony.
Andrew, a retired British army officer who is nicknamed the Brigadier for the rank he rose to, was born into royal circles – his aristocratic parents were close friends with the Queen Mother – and he was a page at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation.
All three of Parker Bowles’ grandsons – Freddy, Tom Parker Bowles’ son, and Laura Lopes’ twins Gus and Louis, followed in his footsteps by being pages at their grandmother’s coronation. Mark Stewart/Camera Press/Redux
Parker Bowles’ grandchildren, including daughter Laura Lopes’ twins Gus and Louis are regulars at royal events, such as the military parade Trooping the Colour in 2014. They were pages to Queen Camilla. Alan Davidson/Shutterstock
He was always part of the royal social set and played polo with Prince Charles. His romance with Camilla (then Shand) was on and off for several years and at one point in the early 1970s he was in a “royal quadrangle’ when he was dating Princess Anne while her brother Charles was seeing Camilla.
There was never likely to be any future with Anne. At the time, marrying a Catholic like Parker Bowles would have removed her from the line of succession to the throne.
Meanwhile, Charles was seriously in love with Camilla but there were forces within the Palace who did not want them to marry and when Charles travelled overseas with the Royal Navy the relationship ended and Camilla got back together with Andrew.
Andrew Parker Bowles was just 13 when he was a page at Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. He was one of the very few to also attended King Charles and Queen Camilla’s coronation – and one of the most eyebrow-raising. Bettmann Archive
When his future wife was dating Prince Charles, Andrew Parker Bowles was dating the heir to the throne’s sister, Princess Anne. Shutterstock
According to rumor, Camilla and Andrew’s father’s Bruce Shand and Derek Parker Bowles forced him to propose by publishing an engagement announcement in the Times of London on March 15 1973.
He went down on one knee after it had been published and the two married later the same year. Camilla shared the news of the engagement with Charles in a letter which “broke his heart” according to royal author Penny Junor.
Andrew was often away as a Guards cavalry officer in the Army, working in Northern Ireland and Zimbabwe, for which he was awarded a Queen’s Commendation for Bravery.
Getty Images
Andrew Parker Bowles married the then Camilla Shand in the Guards Chapel in central London. He was a dashing cavalry officer – but rumors claim he was forced to propose, and he is said to have been the first to cheat. Getty Images
When he was stationed at home, his duties kept him in royal circles: the mounted guards are the most prestigious British military units, and play a key part in royal ceremonies, with the soldiers on horseback resplendent in their polished uniforms.
But his duties also brought heartbreak. He was commanding officer of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment in 1982 when men and horses from his regiment were killed by two IRA bombs.
The then Lieutenant Colonel Parker Bowles was one of the first at the horrific scene, which killed four men under his command, another seven soldiers from a military band, and seven horses. It was one of the terrorist group’s most notorious attacks, carried out just a few hundred yards from Buckingham Palace.
Parker Bowles has five grandchildren in total – his three grandsons and his two granddaughters, Eliza (left, with mom Laura Lopes and dad Harry Lopes) and Lola (right) with dad Tom Parker Bowles and mom Sara Buys, his ex-wife. Alan Davidson/Shutterstock
More happily his military service also made him Silver Stick in Waiting to the Queen, and he sat in uniform for the British painter Lucian Freud, who called the work “Brigadier.”
A magnet for women, he was allegedly the first to be unfaithful in the marriage and was one of the inspirations for the literary seducer Rupert Campbell-Black in the British author Jilly Cooper’s “bonkbuster” novel The Riders.
In 1986 Camilla took up again with Charles and the relationship was kept as an open secret for many years. “They were part of this big friendship group and there was this unspoken arrangement which suited them all, until it blew up,” says royal commentator Joshua Rom.
Both Parker Bowles were happy to have their marriage as an “arrangement” while she was Charles’ mistress and he pursued other women. PA Images via Getty Images
In 1993 the recording of an explicit phone conversation between Charles and Camilla – the first famous case of “phone sex” – was exposed. The relationship could no longer be hidden.
Camilla and Andrew divorced in 1995 but to this day are apparently the best of friends.
One of her friends and Queen’s Companions, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, told The Sunday Times of London of their relationship: “Everybody loves Andrew. He’s a real charmer but he’s always terribly misbehaving.
“Andrew will ring her up and tell her when she’s got something wrong and she’ll ring him up and say when he’s misbehaving.
“Through adversity they’ve kept a really good family ethic. It helps with their children and grandchildren.”
Parker Bowles remains friends with Princess Anne, whom he dated in the 70s, and was seen at the Cheltenham horseracing festival in 2022 with her and her second husband, Vice Admiral Tim Laurence. PA Images via Getty Images
Now 83, Parker Bowles remains a “charmer” who has many female visitors. Queen Camilla will phone him if he is “naughty,” a friend said. Getty Images
He has also remained on good terms with another ex, Princess Anne, and is godfather to her daughter Zara.
After his divorce, Andrew married Rose Pitman who died of cancer aged 69 in 2010.
One source who knows him well says: “He’s the most charming man imaginable – immensely attractive. He remains quite the lady’s man and has a host of women who visit him regularly.”
Source: New York Post
