History is full of many unanswered questions – and one of the biggest questions surrounding the British royal family is why King Charles married the late Princess Diana (then known as Lady Diana Spencer) on July 29th, 1981, when he was madly in love with Camilla Rosemary Shand (later known as Camilla Parker Bowles after she married Andrew Parker Bowles in 1973, and now known as Queen Consort Camilla.) However, we could be a little closer to getting some answers thanks to a royal expert!
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Why Did King Charles Marry Princess Diana And Not Queen Consort Camilla In The First Place?
According to Camilla: From Outcast To Future Queen Consort author Angela Levin, Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Diana's grandmother, Lady Fermoy, had a huge part to play in it, as did the fact that Princess Diana was much younger than Camilla and therefore, in theory, more likely to give birth to the heir to the throne.
"King Charles had to have an heir and... I think it would have been quite difficult for them to have a child and the Queen would have been terribly worried about that. Because her whole aim is to keep the monarchy going," Levin said on Podcast Royal.
"And also with Diana I think it's very important to say that Charles was being nagged to get married," Levin continued. "He was over 30, he had to find heirs. And it was a plot between Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Diana's grandmother, Lady Fermoy, and they actually worked together that this would be a very good thing."
Charles and Diana got engaged just 13 days after their courtship began, which proves that time was of the essence. Diana allegedly said that their wedding day was "the worst day of her life," and allegedly told her sisters, "I can’t marry him," during a pre-wedding lunch. They did, of course, make it down the aisle in 1981, but divorced in 1996, with Charles ultimately going on to marry Camilla in 2005, despite (according to Prince Harry's memoir, Spare) his sons Prince William and Prince Harry asking him not to.
Queen Consort Camilla 'Wasn't Aristocratic Enough'
Other royal experts have also weighed in on this age-old topic. Sally Bedell Smith, author of Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life, also mentioned that age had a huge part to play in King Charles' decision, while The Duchess: Camilla Parker Bowles and the Love Affair That Rocked the Crown author Penny Junor went on to say that the royal family wasn’t interested in having Camilla as its princess due to her being perceived as an "experienced" woman. Junor also said that the royal family – in particular, Charles' great-uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten – didn’t think she was "aristocratic" enough to be a princess.
Another interesting thing to note is that Camilla's family reportedly weren’t keen on her marrying into the royal family, as they allegedly forced Andrew Parker Bowles' hand by planting a fake Camilla-Andrew engagement notice in The Times, which then prompted him to pop the question for real. No one knows if he would have proposed without the fake notice, and if Charles would have gone on to marry her against his family's wishes!
