How The Queen’s speech at Charles and Camilla’s wedding made the nervous bride feel accepted (after Camilla almost missed her own big day!)
- Camilla was suffering from ill health in the week leading up to her wedding
- Her sister Annabel threatened to wear her wedding dress to get her out of bed on her big day
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It was the romance that rocked the House of Windsor with the public split down the middle when Charles and Camilla announced they were getting married.
Some congratulated the happy couple, others vented their anger over the betrayal of Diana they felt it represented.
The pair’s journey to married life was far from easy, making any pre-wedding anxiety just that more intense.
But it would be the Queen herself who would eventually help Camilla with her worries when she gave her blessing to the duo during a speech at the wedding, according to Penny Junor’s book, The Untold Story.
The Queen expressed her delight to be welcoming her son and his bride to the ‘winners’ enclosure
Her sister Annabel threatened to wear her wedding dress to get her out of bed on her big day
The Queen said in her speech: ‘My son is home and dry with the woman he loves’
‘They have overcome Becher’s Brook and The Chair and all kinds of other terrible obstacles. They have come through and I’m very proud and wish them well. My son is home and dry with the woman he loves.’
And it wasn’t just the Queen who accepted Camilla, as William and Harry said at the time that they were ‘100 per cent’ behind the couple and wished them ‘all the luck in the world.’
Although it was not just the Queen’s affection that Camilla was battling for, as she was also fighting off sinusitis in the week leading up to the big day.
The person who first introduced Camilla and Charles, Lucia Santa Cruz, feared that the bride would not be able to go to her own wedding.
Lucia brought her chicken soup, which she said cures everything in her culture and hoped for the best.
But battling illness and also the pressure of a royal wedding, the bride-to-be struggled to get out of bed.
Camilla had four people in bedroom, including her sister Annabel and daughter Laura, trying to persuade her to get ready.
When that failed, her sister said: ‘OK, that’s all right. I’m going to do it for you. I’m going to get into your clothes.’
It was at that point that the Queen Consort got up, went to her wedding and finally got her fairytale ending.
Meanwhile, The Queen and Prince Philip were nowhere to be seen when the civil ceremony took place prompting much speculation.
Yet the real reason why The Queen was absent is much simpler than many might suppose.
Prince Charles with Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, leaving their civil ceremony at the Guildhall, Windsor, in 2005. There was an impressive guest list. Yet his own mother was missing
Prince Charles and Camilla surrounded by their family. From the back left: Prince Harry, Prince William and Camilla’s children, Tom and Laura Parker Bowles. From front left: the Duke of Edinburgh, The Queen and Camilla’s father Bruce Shand
As monarch, The Queen was Head of The Church of England. And both Charles and Camilla had previously been married – and subsequently divorced.
While recognising divorce as a sad fact of life, the Church of England does not encourage it.
The Queen, herself a devout believer, could not be seen to question the Church’s values in any way.
And on the weeks before to the wedding, the Telegraph reported that she had told one of her friends: ‘I am not able to go. I do not feel that my position permits it.’
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