Queen Camilla

Biography

Camilla Rosemary Shand was born in London in 1947, the eldest child of Major Bruce Shand, an army officer turned wine merchant, and Rosalind Cubitt. She grew up in East Sussex and South Kensington, attended Queen's Gate School, and then went to a finishing school in Switzerland and studied French in Paris. Back in London she worked as a secretary and receptionist.

In 1973 she married Andrew Parker Bowles, a Guards officer; they had two children, Tom and Laura, and divorced in 1995. She and Prince Charles moved in the same social circle from the early 1970s, and the two were romantically involved at times before and during their first marriages, a relationship that drew intense press attention.

Camilla and Charles married in a civil ceremony at the Windsor Guildhall on 9 April 2005, followed by a televised blessing at St George's Chapel, and she became known as the Duchess of Cornwall. When Charles succeeded Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022 she became queen consort, and the two were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 May 2023.

She carries out public engagements on behalf of the monarch and is patron of many charities. Since 1994 she has campaigned on osteoporosis, the disease that killed her mother, and she has also worked to raise awareness of rape and sexual abuse, illiteracy, animal welfare and poverty.