The Real Reason Queen Elizabeth Skipped Her Son's Wedding
Charles and Camilla as depicted in 'The Crown.'
After a melancholy season which chronicled the deaths of several notable royals, The Crown wrapped up on a moderately more cheerful note with a finale focusing on Prince Charles’s long-awaited 2005 wedding to Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Although the couple had been together for many years by this time, their nuptials had been long delayed for several reasons—both were divorced, meaning that a marriage would technically violate the rules of the Church of England. However, even after the church changed its rules in 2002, Charles and Camilla remained controversial as a couple because of the public’s awareness that Camilla had been “the other woman” in Charles’s marriage to the beloved Princess Diana.
Nonetheless, the queen eventually gave her consent for Charles to marry Camilla during an audience with the prince over Christmas of 2004. Shortly after that, on Feb. 10, 2005, the palace announced that their wedding would take place that April. A statement on behalf of the queen said: "The Duke of Edinburgh and I are very happy that The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Parker Bowles are to marry. We have given them our warmest good wishes for their future together."
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Why did the Queen not attend Charles and Camilla's wedding?
Despite finally giving her permission for the marriage to go ahead, Queen Elizabeth was not present for the civil ceremony itself, which took place on April 8, 2005 at the Windsor Guildhall, a private hire venue near Windsor Castle. The monarch’s absence was reported well in advance, with The Telegraph calling it “a snub” and suggesting that the monarch was “horrified at the prospect of the heir to the throne marrying in, effectively, a town hall. There has been speculation that she regarded it as ‘common.’”
A spokesman for Queen Elizabeth strongly denied that her absence was a snub, telling The Telegraph, “The Queen is aware that the prince and Mrs Parker Bowles wanted to keep the occasion low key. The Queen and the rest of the Royal Family will, of course, be going to the service of dedication at St George's Chapel. She is very pleased to be giving the wedding reception at the castle."
But a later Telegraph report indicated that the queen felt it would be inappropriate for her to attend a civil wedding ceremony between two divorced people, given her role as the head of the Church of England. “The venue was never the issue for the Queen," a royal aide told The Telegraph. "The civil nature of the service is the issue. She did not feel it was appropriate for her to attend." However, she hosted the pair’s wedding reception at Windsor Castle and also attended their religious blessing at St. George’s Chapel, making her support clear despite skipping the ceremony itself.
Did Prince Philip go to Charles and Camilla's wedding?
Prince Philip did not attend the wedding ceremony, for the same reasons as Queen Elizabeth. The ceremony was a small affair, with just 28 people attending at Windsor Guildhall. Charles’s son Prince William, and Camilla’s son, Tom Parker-Bowles, were on hand as witnesses, while Charles’s siblings, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, were also in attendance.
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Did Queen Elizabeth wear white to Camilla's wedding?
Justin Downing
Queen Elizabeth wore a creamy white ensemble, complete with a trademark matching hat, to Charles and Camilla’s service of blessings at St. George’s Chapel, a choice that was controversial at the time, although said controversy was not address in the show. The outfit is recreated in meticulous detail for The Crown’s series finale, and features in a moving sequence in which the queen envisions herself alongside her three younger incarnations, played by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, and this season’s newcomer Viola Prettejohn.
Hello! magazine noted that the queen’s outfit was a departure from her usual bold color choices at weddings, and that the choice might have been made “because it didn't clash with Duchess Camilla's second wedding dress, which was pale blue.” The writer added that Camilla had opted for “two more unconventional outfits” for her wedding, rather than a traditional white dress, which may well have informed the dress code for other female guests. Camilla wore a cream silk chiffon dress for the ceremony itself, before changing into a pale blue chiffon gown with a matching coat for the blessing ceremony.
Who told Charles not to marry Camilla?
As both fans of The Crown and real life royal enthusiasts will know, Prince Charles had wanted to marry Camilla for years, and their relationship predated the one between him and Princess Diana. But according to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith, the royal family saw Camilla as both too “experienced” and not “aristocratic” enough to be an appropriate match for the heir to the throne.
It was reportedly Charles’s great uncle, Lord Mountbatten, who first advised him not to marry Camilla. According to the ITV documentary The Real Camilla: HRH the Duchess of Cornwall (per Express), Mountbatten told Charles during the 1970s: “Lovely for you two to have a fling, but this absolutely cannot end in marriage.”
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry also revealed that he and his brother Prince William both begged Charles not to marry Camilla. While he and William were willing to welcome Camilla into the family, he wrote, “the only thing we asked in return was that he not marry her. You don’t need to remarry, we pleaded. A wedding would cause controversy. It would incite the press. It would make the whole country, the whole world, talk about Mummy, compare Mummy and Camilla, and nobody wanted that. Least of all Camilla… Please don’t marry her. Just be together, Pa.” But later in the book, Harry describes the wedding day itself as “cathartic for everyone, even me”.
In February 2022, seven months before her death, Queen Elizabeth publicly honored Charles and Camilla for the first time, and essentially bestowed a long-contested title upon Camilla. During a speech to mark the 70th anniversary of her ascension to the throne, she said: “When, in the fullness of time, my son Charles becomes King, I know you will give him and his wife Camilla the same support that you have given me. And it is my sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.”
