The Duchess of Cornwall went into 'meltdown' and had to be 'coaxed' from bed on the morning of her wedding to Prince Charles, a royal biographer has claimed.
- Camilla Parker Bowles had to be 'coaxed' from her bed to attend her wedding to Prince Charles, a new royal book has claimed.
- The Duchess of Cornwall reportedly suffered a 'meltdown' before her nuptials to the Queen's eldest son in April 2005, after the couple's plans to marry were uprooted by external factors.
- In other royal news, Lady Louise climbs the ranks at important event following Prince Philip's memorial.
It may have looked idyllic from the outside, but Camilla Parker Bowles's wedding to Prince Charles didn't get off to the fairytale start you might have pictured.
The Duchess of Cornwall tied the knot with the Prince of Wales in a civil ceremony on 9 April 2005, over 35 years after the high-profile couple first laid eyes on each other.
The royal wedding, which took place in the Ascot Room at Windsor Guildhall, marked both Camilla and Charles's second time to say 'I do' after separating from their respective former spouses, Andrew Parker Bowles and the late Princess Diana.
It was witnessed by 28 guests, including Princes William and Harry, and celebrated by thousands of royal fans outside the Berkshire town hall and across the country.
As Head of the Church of England, the Queen—along with the late Duke of Edinburgh—decided not to due to the secular nature of the ceremony. They did, however, join the 800 attendees at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle afterwards to watch the future King and his consort receive a marital blessing from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams.
If the photos were anything to go by, the Duchess looked every inch the royal bride outside the town hall—waving gracefully and smiling for the cameras whilst linking arms with her new husband.
However, according to an extract from Tina Brown's new book, The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor—the Truth and the Turmoil, the VIP wedding didn't exactly get off to the best start.
Pope John Paul II's death on April 2 reportedly threw the couple's plans into total disarray, with the head of the Catholic Church's funeral now falling on the same day as Camilla and Charles' wedding. According to Brown, the Queen insisted that Prince Charles fly to the Vatican in Rome to represent her—forcing the royal heir to postpone his nuptials by 24 hours.
Prince Charles flew to Rome to represent the Queen at the Pope's funeral the day before his wedding to Duchess Camilla
It didn't help that the press was simultaneously sensationalizing the monarch's refusal to attend the ceremony, with headlines like 'A Bloody Farce!' and 'Queen Snubs Charles’s Wedding!' splashing across nearly every British tabloid in the buildup to the occasion.
The stress reached a boiling point for the "otherwise stalwart Camilla", says Brown, causing her to spiral into a "meltdown" over the sequence of unfortunate events.
"She developed a chronic case of sinusitis and spent the week with girlfriends ministering to her shredded nerves," the royal biographer writes. "On the day of the wedding, she had to be coaxed out of bed."
Fortunately, Camilla's terror wasn't enough to make her jilt Charles at the altar. She quickly pulled herself together, slipping into a cream silk dress and matching coat by Anna Valentine—paired with that Philip Tracey hat—and got herself to the town hall in time for the ceremony at 12.30 pm.
"Aged 57, unvarnished, unblushing, unsvelte, she was someone that Diana had never been: the woman whom the Prince of Wales had wanted all along," Brown added.
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