The Woman Who Doomed Fairy Tale Marriage

This Saturday afternoon—blizzards, horse-racing, and papal funerals permitting—will see the blissful union of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles—or Fred and Gladys, as they apparently delight in calling one another. The length and breadth of Britain, the bunting will surely flutter and the commemorative mugs will be raised in damp-eyed toasts to the happy couple. For the story of Charles and Camilla is a tale of true love; a love, indeed, that has stretched across decades, marriages, and, at times, the white-knuckled wrath of the British public.

Their eyes first met at a Windsor polo match in that heady summer of 1971. The weather was damp, and "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" was No. 1 on the charts. Legend holds that it was Camilla—then Camilla Shand, a debutante with aristocratic lineage and an equestrian bent—who made the opening gambit, telling the mildly dashing young prince that one of her ancestors, Alice Keppel, had been the mistress of Edward VII. "My great-grandmother and your great-great-grandfather were lovers," she is said to have purred. "So how about it?"

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