Whoah, and there I thought Queenie had it in for Diana.

Even though they were both divorced at the time, the Daily Mail has revealed that the Queen deeply disapproved of her son Charles’ relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles:

On a late summer’s evening at Balmoral, Charles decided the moment had finally come. He was going to confront his mother and demand, once and for all, that she end her continued hostility to the woman he loved, Camilla Parker Bowles.

For years, both the Queen and her mother had refused to have anything to do with Charles’s mistress. Not only did they not want her present at any royal function, either formal or informal; they actively disapproved of her, and of Charles’s relationship with her.

But by the summer of 1998, Camilla was growing increasingly annoyed with Charles’s continued insistence that she must keep a low profile.

‘You’re off to the theatre with friends, so why can’t I come?’ she’d snap. She also wanted to meet William and Harry, and to be able to join Charles on holiday — and could see no reason, almost a year after Diana’s death, why that shouldn’t happen.

The information comes from a new biography of Prince Charles by Tom Bower, Britain’s “top investigative author”.

Bower goes on to reveal how an angry Prince decided it was time for a showdown at Balmoral Castle, the large estate house in Royal Deeside, Scotland:

So, exasperated by what he termed an intolerable situation, and egged on by Margaret, he approached his mother one night in her sitting room at Balmoral.

He asked that she soften her antagonism so he could live openly with Camilla. His hope was that the Queen, who rarely interfered, would at least not directly forbid it.

But on that evening she’d had several martinis, and to Charles’s surprise she replied forcefully: she would not condone his adultery, nor forgive Camilla for not leaving Charles alone to allow his marriage to recover.

She vented her anger that he had lied about his relationship with what she called ‘that wicked woman’, and added: ‘I want nothing to do with her.’

Met with a further hostile silence, Charles fled the room. In his fragile state, her phrase — ‘that wicked woman’ — was unforgettable.

And while neither the Queen nor her mother would allow Camilla to be present in the same room as them, they both made a point of welcoming her ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, to receptions, parties and race meetings.

Talk about sending a message.

Following years of what appeared to be a cold war between the two, with most of the Royal household taking the side of the Queen, it was the death of the Queen Mother in 2002 that finally led to a turning point in her daughter’s attitude towards Camilla:

Initially, she’d decided that Camilla couldn’t be invited to the funeral, because the Queen Mother had disapproved of her so strongly. But she changed her mind after hearing Charles’s emotional tribute to her mother on TV.

And so, she relented — a little. Camilla, she conceded, could be present at the funeral as ‘a friend of the Queen Mother’, but not as Charles’s partner.

It WAS the Queen’s firm belief that Charles would not marry Camilla in her lifetime. Yet, in 2005, he proposed marriage to his mistress, by then aged 57.

And, while the couple’s engagement was duly “welcomed” by the Queen, few could be sure what she really thought.

If you need more Royal scandal, read the full piece here.

[source:dailymail]