This article was originally published on WHerMoments
Royal social circles are pretty small, and for proof of that just look at the romantic history of Queen Camilla. She was married to Andrew Parker Bowles before becoming the official partner of King Charles III, and her former husband has had a complicated love-life himself. Besides Camilla, he once had a fling with another member of the royal family!
Andrew was at the coronation
Andrew still has ties to his ex, Camilla. He was even at the coronation ceremony that saw her and Charles crowned as monarchs.
That might seem surprising at first — not everyone would want their ex-spouse at a big event involving their new family — but it was pretty normal. After all, the grandkids Andrew shares with Camilla were page boys during the proceedings.
An amicable break-up
Camilla and Andrew have been divorced since 1995; both of them have since remarried. Camilla obviously tied the knot to Charles in 2005 while Andrew got married to Rosemary Pitman.
That came only a year after his divorce to Camilla had been made official. Still, the former couple remained on amicable terms.
“Fiercely loyal to friends”
Camilla really wanted her ex-husband to attend the coronation, a friend of hers reported beforehand to British newspaper The Sunday Times. According to Lady Lansdowne, “She is fiercely loyal to friends, and that will be reflected in who goes to the big day.
She wants to be loyal to the people who’ve stood by her.”
Meeting an ex
Still, given Andrew’s history with the royal family, it might not have been a huge surprise if he hadn’t been invited to the coronation: his presence there would likely have involved a meeting with one of his ex-lovers.
And that person happens to be one of the royal family’s most senior members.
Always close to the family
Andrew had always been close to the royal family, virtually from the very moment he arrived into the world in 1939. His mom and dad were actually the Queen Mother’s pals, so he grew up knowing the family well.
He later played an important part in Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 coronation himself, acting as a page during the ceremony.
A man of the military
When he grew up, Andrew joined the military. He stayed there for 34 years, climbing the ranks and picking up some awards.
The height of his career came when he was made a brigadier; during service in Zimbabwe he was also bestowed with the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery.
A tempestuous romance
Of course, it’s not his military career for which Andrew is known: it’s mainly his ties to Camilla that have brought him public attention. They met towards the end of the ’60s, before embarking on something of a tempestuous romance.
It was full of ups and downs, with the couple repeatedly breaking up and getting back together again.
Family pressure
By 1973 Andrew was being pressured to pop the question to Camilla. That expectation stemmed from both his and Camilla’s respective dads.
These men clearly wanted a marriage to happen between their kids. In fact, they actually announced their engagement in the press before it even happened! After that, Andrew felt he had little choice but to get down on one knee.
“Very much in love”
According to Andrew’s own cousin — a guy named John Bowes Lyon — Camilla’s feelings for Andrew were real, even aside from the pressure her dad was placing upon the relationship. Bowes Lyon spoke to a royal biographer named Sally Bedell Smith about this, stating, “Camilla was very much in love with [Andrew].
Her parents were very keen that Andrew should marry her.”
The wedding day
As previously noted, Camilla and Andrew did get married in the end, with the ceremony taking place on July 4, 1973.
The Catholic ceremony was conducted at Guards Chapel in London, and the guest list was full of prominent names, including Princess Anne, Princess Margaret, and the Queen Mother.
The kids…
After the wedding the couple brought two kids — Laura and Tom — into the world. Technically, these two are now the step-kids of Charles.
Not only that, but Charles is also Tom’s godfather. This is what we meant by the small social circles of the royals and the aristocracy.
...and the kids’ kids
Laura and Tom went on to have children of their own, making Andrew and Camilla grandparents. Charles, then, is a step-grandparent to these children, and, too, has a relationship with them.
According to Camilla herself, he even reads to them from a famous book series. In 2017 ehe recalled to newspaper the Daily Mail, “Sometimes when we are with my husband in Scotland, he reads them Harry Potter.”
Spellbound
Camilla went on, “And he does all the voices, because he is a brilliant mimic. I’m not very good.
I try to do the voices, but acting isn’t my forte. But he sits down and they all sit with him. I always think they are going to be wriggling around in bed, but they sit spellbound.”
A turbulent past
It’s all seemingly happy families these days, but the history between Camilla and Andrew is definitely complicated. Everyone might be friends nowadays, but their time together was, to put it lightly, turbulent.
And anyone who’s watched The Crown will know why. As depicted in season three, Andrew is said to have been with one of the royals.
The show’s version
We’re talking about Princess Anne, of course. As the show tells it, the two met at a party and started flirting.
They ended up in the same bed, with Andrew warning Anne that his bond with Camilla might end up hurting her. Anne, for her part, brushed those worries aside.
Truth or fiction?
By the following episode, we discover that Anne and Andrew’s tryst had been short-lived. But how accurate was all this?
Did it really happen this way? Well, for insight we can turn to Bedell Smith. She spoke to Vanity Fair magazine about it, claiming the pair had met in 1970 at annual horse-racing event Royal Ascot.
Doomed to fail
After that first meeting, they did apparently start to see each other for a while. But it was a relationship doomed to fail for one specific reason, according to Bedell Smith.
She said, “Anne and Andrew enjoyed each other’s company, but they could never marry because he was a Catholic.”
Smitten for a time
There is no shortage of writers who dedicate themselves to the lives and loves of the royals, and another one has her own thoughts on this matter. According to Penny Junor, Andrew was absolutely smitten by Anne for a time.
But, of course, nothing came of it, and he ended up with Camilla.
Remained lifelong friends
Despite the end of their brief relationship Anne and Andrew stayed on good terms with each other. In fact, it’s not all that unusual to see them together; even in recent years, after all this time since they were together.
As Bedell Smith once wrote, “Even when their romance eventually wound down, they remained lifelong friends.”
A rocky relationship
As for Andrew and Camilla’s relationship, that was never exactly simple. According to reports, he cheated on her on numerous occasions.
And to make things worse, it was often with Camilla’s own friends. All of this makes it all the more surprising they retain such an amicable relationship nowadays.
Can leopards really change their spots?
Junor has written about the relationship Andrew and Camilla once shared. She said, “She foolishly believed that leopards can change their spots and her heart belonged to Andrew, the man so many women had wanted, but whom she had successfully bagged.
He thought he was everything she looked for in a man and he would give her everything she had dreamed of.”
An “alpha male”
Junor went on to talk about Andrew’s character and how it had appealed to Camilla. She said, “He was an alpha male, sophisticated and experienced.
She liked the fact that he was a cavalry officer, as her father had been, and that like her father, who had won the Military Cross twice, he was brave.”
Completely separate lives
But the issues at the heart of Andrew and Camilla’s relationship eventually won out. In January 1995 they issued a statement publicly announcing their separation.
They didn’t go into too many details, but they did explain, “Throughout our marriage we have always tended to follow rather different interests, but in recent years we have led completely separate lives.”
A new spouse
And as mentioned above, it was only a year or so later when Andrew got himself a new wife in the form of Rosemary Pitman. The couple remained together for many years, before Rosemary lost her life in 2010.
It was a tragic turn of events that was said to have upset Camilla, as well as her former partner.
Rosemary’s son speaks out
Rosemary, too, had been married before, and it was a relationship that had resulted in a son named Henry. He spoke to the press following his mom’s death, stating, “She has had a long battle with cancer and has been fighting it extremely hard.
She was very pleased to have made Christmas and then Andrew’s birthday, his 70th, just after Christmas, and subsequently the birth of his grandchildren.”
Out of the spotlight
Following the loss of his wife, Andrew has tended to steer clear of the spotlight. But having said that, he has, on occasion, shown up at events involving the royal family.
He’s even been dispatched as a formal representative for the family. At a funeral in 2022 he was sent to pay his respects on behalf of Camilla.
Water under the bridge
This wasn’t the only time in which Andrew had been sent somewhere on behalf of the Windsors. And it’s not just on Camilla’s behalf that he’s been used as an envoy: on occasion, he’s actually also represented his former lover, Anne.
It seems all that’s passed between him and both Anne and Camilla really is water under the bridge.
Anne’s family life
On the subject of Anne, she’s also long since moved on from Andrew. She got married to Sir Timothy Laurence in 1992; it is a union that has endured to the present day.
Before that, though, she’d called Mark Phillips her husband. They were together for 19 years, raising Zara and Peter together.
True feelings
Things all seem to have settled down now, and everyone seems to be friends. You would imagine there still must be some level of awkwardness between Andrew and his royal exes, Camilla and Anne.
Who can be sure, though? Only they and their nearest and dearest probably know how they truly feel about the situation.