It was a fairy tale romance.
There was the lavish royal wedding. A kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Cheers from the adoring throngs below.
Wait! That’s the wrong story. The right one is much more, well, complicated.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla met more than 50 years ago but their romance had to survive meddling families, marriages to other people and no small amount of public ridicule before they finally married. On Wednesday, the royal couple celebrate their 20th anniversary, a milestone made all the more remarkable by the fact that for so long their love story was overshadowed by the fairy tale princess who came before Camilla.
“We missed the love story, there’s no doubt about it,” said Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life.” “But in fairness, it was not something that was very visible.”
The road between the time they met in the 1970s and their marriage on April 9, 2005, was rocky.
Charles, then a young naval officer, fell in love but was soon sent to sea for eight months. While he was away, Camilla accepted the proposal of a dashing cavalry officer.
But they remained friends, even as Charles’ courtship and played out before an adoring nation in 1981. And they were more than friends when both of their marriages crumbled in the mid-1990s.
Many in Britain blamed Camilla for the extramarital affair that torpedoed his marriage to Diana, the glamorous young mother of Princes William and Harry who was adored for her style and the human touch she brought to her charity work. That resentment flared when “the People’s Princess” in 1997, five years after her messy, public split from Charles.
The crash thrust Camilla back into the shadows.
Over time, she was slowly reintroduced to the public, starting with a 1999 event where she and Charles made their first public appearance as a couple. There were meetings with Queen Elizabeth II, as well as with William and Harry.
Still, there were questions. Should a be king? Could Camilla ever be queen?
But eventually the time was right.
The union came on April 9, 2005, in a modest civil ceremony in Windsor — just down the road from the 1,000-year-old castle that is a second home for British royals. Instead of the pageantry that marked Charles’ wedding to Diana — an extravaganza watched by millions around the world — Britain got a union between 50-something divorcees.
The bride wore a cream silk chiffon dress and matching coat, with a lace-trimmed straw hat. The groom wore a black tailcoat and gray tie. William and Harry attended, as did Camilla’s two children. In total, there were 30 guests.
A blessing ceremony at the castle’s St. George’s Chapel later that day was attended by 800 people, including the groom’s parents, Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
There were a few boos from the crowd — presumably from Diana fans — but mostly cheers. One banner read: “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
There were waves, but no kiss.
Their union has now lasted five years longer than Charles’ marriage to Diana and shows no signs of faltering.
Julie Gottman, co-founder of The Gottman Institute, which studies relationships, said Charles and Camilla appear to embody many of the characteristics needed for a strong marriage: trust, commitment and a sense of shared purpose.
“Before anything, they had a friendship,” she said. “And when you have a relationship in which friendship is the foundation, you’re much more likely to really succeed in marriage and a committed relationship because that foundation is already there.”
The public mood has continued to soften in the years since Charles married the woman then known as Camilla Parker Bowles.
Camilla, 77, has taken on roles at almost 100 charities, championing issues that range from promoting literacy to supporting victims of domestic violence and fighting child sexual exploitation. Some of her causes pushed the boundaries of the royal family, known for supporting worthy but non-controversial charities. For the public, it seemed as if she was in touch with the modern world.
Her style is down to earth. Her sense of humor is self-deprecating. Just like Charles, she loves dogs and horses. More to the point, she seems to make the king happy.
George Gross, a royal historian at King’s College London, said the relationship reminds him of that between Charles’ parents. Elizabeth described Philip as her “strength and stay” in her Golden Wedding anniversary speech, recognizing his unwavering support and partnership throughout their and her long reign.
“I think they have managed to find this way of making it work, and I do think feeding off each other in this strength of resilience, because I think you have to be resilient and if you count the number of, in fact it’s very difficult to count, the number of engagements they do every year multiplied by those 20 years of marriage, it’s thousands,” Gross said.
The relationship has been further challenged by . The king briefly cancelled his public engagements for more than two months last year after revealing that he was undergoing treatment for an undisclosed form of cancer.
Camilla , increasing her appearances and taking on the all-important role of keeping the royal family in the public eye. Camilla has helped pick up the slack, demonstrating the importance of her rehabilitation to Charles and the royal family.
And when Charles resumed his duties, Camilla took a few steps back. Not into the shadows, exactly, but far enough to make sure that the spotlight shined on Charles.
That suggests something else about Camilla that helped make the relationship a success, Gottman said.
“My guess is that … it wasn’t about becoming queen,” she said. “That wasn’t it. What she wanted all along was to be his true love and mate.”