Camilla is now the Queen, serving as a Queen Consort at Charles’s side.
The wife of a king automatically becomes a queen consort and only a change in legislation would prevent her from doing so, but there had been much controversy over whether Camilla would use the title.
Elizabeth II delivered a masterstroke on the eve of her Platinum Jubilee in February 2022 when she endorsed the Duchess of Cornwall to be known as Queen when the time came.
The Queen said it was her “sincere wish” that Camilla would take the title and called on the public to back both her daughter-in-law and Charles when he became King.
Camilla later said she felt “very honoured and very touched” by the public seal of approval.
It ended years of debate over what the duchess – Charles’s former mistress – would eventually be called.
Royal aides insisted, when she married Charles, that Camilla did not want to be queen and said originally that she “intended” to be known instead as Princess Consort – the first in British history – when Charles acceded to the throne.
Any mention of “Princess Consort” was removed from Charles’s website during a revamp in 2018.
There was fierce debate ahead of the royal wedding in 2005.
The prince’s advisers argued that Camilla would simply choose not to call herself queen and be known as Princess Consort.
Much has changed in the years since Charles – whom aides once said had no intention of remarrying – wed his long-term love.
Camilla was blamed for the breakdown of the prince’s marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, and, when news of their affair first came to light, she faced vitriolic criticism.
Camilla has gradually taken on a more prominent position within the royal family, including riding next to the Queen in her Diamond Jubilee carriage procession.
She also began to attend the State Opening of Parliament.
Through charity work championing literacy, and highlighting the problem of domestic abuse and sexual violence, Camilla has carved out her own royal role.
Royal author Penny Junor said of the Queen’s backing of Camilla: “This is the Queen’s wish. This is not about Charles being headstrong and wanting this for the woman he loves.
“It is a proper endorsement from the top and it’s right and well deserved, and just as it should be.”
In 2010, when Charles was put on the spot and asked if Camilla would be his queen in an interview, he replied: “That’s, that’s, we’ll see, won’t we? That could be.”
Charles’s official biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby, suggested as far back as 2005 to BBC’s Panorama programme that people might one day want Camilla to be queen.
In 2011, when the duchess visited a children’s centre in Chippenham, Wiltshire, she was asked by an eight-year-old: “Are you going to be queen one day?”
Looking a little shocked, she replied with the quip: “You never know.”
She is expected to wear the Queen Mother’s 1937 coronation crown.
The royal website used to declare: “A Queen consort is crowned with the King, in a similar but simpler ceremony.”
But, following Charles’s marriage to Camilla, it added the get-out clause “unless decided otherwise”.
Camilla’s title is Her Majesty The Queen.
