WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.719
This episode blends documented events and public statements with dramatized
2
00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:10.000
private moments. Conversations behind closed doors are imagined for storytelling
3
00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:13.000
and should not be taken as literal transcripts.
4
00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:30.039
Calaroga Shark Media. The reception at Clarence House in early
5
00:00:30.039 --> 00:00:36.479
twenty sixteen was elegant, perfectly orchestrated. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall,
6
00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:40.840
moved through the room with practiced ease, making conversation with
7
00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:46.799
charity patrons and diplomats. The guests were polite, some even warm.
8
00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:49.640
It was a far cry from the early years, when
9
00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:52.840
simply appearing in public meant facing a wall of hatred.
10
00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:57.119
But as she smiled and made small talk, Diana's ghost
11
00:00:57.159 --> 00:01:00.479
still hovered in every corner of the room, in every
12
00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:04.359
careful conversation, in every person who looked at her and
13
00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:07.280
remembered the other woman who should have been standing there.
14
00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:13.879
This is Crown and Controversy, Episode twenty eight. Charles and Camilla.
15
00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:18.599
By two thousand and sixteen, Camilla had been Duchess of
16
00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:22.480
Cornwall for eleven years. She had married Charles in a
17
00:01:22.519 --> 00:01:26.560
civil ceremony at Windsor Guildhall in April two thousand and five.
18
00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:30.000
A modest affair compared to his first wedding at Saint
19
00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:35.760
Paul's Cathedral. No Westminster Abbey, no crowds lining the streets,
20
00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:41.040
no fairy tale. Just two people, both divorced, both middle aged,
21
00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:44.840
finally able to marry after decades of being told they
22
00:01:44.879 --> 00:01:51.040
could not. The road to that wedding had been extraordinarily complicated. Initially,
23
00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:55.280
the ceremony was planned for Windsor Castle, but constitutional questions
24
00:01:55.319 --> 00:01:59.200
arose about whether the castle, as a royal residence, could
25
00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:03.840
legally host most a civil ceremony. The venue was hastily
26
00:02:03.920 --> 00:02:07.599
changed to the town's Guildhall, a far less grand setting
27
00:02:07.879 --> 00:02:11.319
but legally sound. The Queen and Prince Philip did not
28
00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:15.280
attend the civil ceremony itself, citing their roles as head
29
00:02:15.319 --> 00:02:17.840
of the Church of England. Though they did attend the
30
00:02:17.879 --> 00:02:22.719
subsequent blessing at Saint George's Chapel, their absence spoke volumes.
31
00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.719
Even as they gave their official blessing to the marriage,
32
00:02:26.159 --> 00:02:29.759
Even as the institution accepted Camilla into the family, there
33
00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:35.039
remained an unmistakable chill. This was not a celebration. This
34
00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:39.039
was damage control, a pragmatic solution to a problem that
35
00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:42.919
had festered for decades. The wedding date itself had to
36
00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:46.360
be postponed by one day because Charles needed to represent
37
00:02:46.439 --> 00:02:49.759
the Queen at Pope John Paul the Second's funeral in Rome,
38
00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:52.319
even on what should have been one of the most
39
00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:57.039
important days of his life. Duty intervened. The message was clear,
40
00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:01.840
Charles could marry Camilla, but only to everything else, only
41
00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:05.840
when it was convenient for the institution, only with restrictions
42
00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:09.560
and compromises that reminded everyone this was not a love
43
00:03:09.639 --> 00:03:14.719
story the monarchy wanted to celebrate. The wedding had been controversial.
44
00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:18.360
Many Britons still blamed Camilla for the breakdown of Charles
45
00:03:18.360 --> 00:03:22.240
and Diana's marriage, the woman Diana had famously called the
46
00:03:22.360 --> 00:03:27.080
Rottweiler in her BBC Panorama interview, the third person in
47
00:03:27.120 --> 00:03:30.599
a marriage that, as Diana put it, was a bit crowded.
48
00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:34.680
Public opinion polls at the time showed that a majority
49
00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:38.520
of Britons opposed the marriage. Some suggested she should never
50
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:42.319
become Queen consort, that she should remain Duchess of Cornwall.
51
00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:47.520
Even after Charles became King, Camilla herself kept an extraordinarily
52
00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:50.439
low profile in the lead up to the wedding. She
53
00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:54.319
gave no interviews, made no public statements about her feelings.
54
00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:59.199
The palace's strategy was to let time and quiet competence
55
00:03:59.479 --> 00:04:03.479
do the work of rehabilitation, rather than any grand gestures
56
00:04:03.759 --> 00:04:08.599
or declarations. She would earn acceptance through service, not through
57
00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:13.919
seeking sympathy or understanding. But Charles had been unwavering. He
58
00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:18.680
loved Camilla, had always loved her. Their romance had begun
59
00:04:18.720 --> 00:04:22.959
in the early nineteen seventies, before he married Diana, before
60
00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:27.519
the fairytale wedding that became a nightmare. Camilla understood him
61
00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:31.120
in ways Diana never had. She did not demand the spotlight.
62
00:04:31.839 --> 00:04:35.399
She did not challenge his authority. She accepted him as
63
00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:40.560
he was. Ego and insecurities and all. The path to
64
00:04:40.680 --> 00:04:45.000
acceptance had been long and deliberately paced. Pallas officials had
65
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:51.360
crafted a careful strategy to rehabilitate Camilla's image. Gradual public appearances,
66
00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:56.399
charity work that highlighted her genuine interests in literacy and
67
00:04:56.519 --> 00:05:00.480
animal welfare, soft focus interviews that presented her her as
68
00:05:00.519 --> 00:05:04.920
a devoted grandmother, a countrywoman who preferred Wellington boots to
69
00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:10.600
design her heels. Slowly, very slowly, the tide of public
70
00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:14.839
opinion began to turn, but the rehabilitation came at a cost.
71
00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:21.120
Every appearance was calculated, every word scrutinized. Camilla could never
72
00:05:21.240 --> 00:05:25.759
fully relax, never let her guard down. One misstep, one
73
00:05:25.839 --> 00:05:31.560
wrong word, and the carefully constructed image would crumble. The
74
00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:35.160
public might have grown more tolerant, but they had not forgotten.
75
00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:54.879
They had not forgiven. The ghost of Diana haunted more
76
00:05:54.920 --> 00:06:00.279
than just public perception. It haunted Charles himself. He had
77
00:05:59.839 --> 00:06:02.920
loved Diana once, or at least he had tried to,
78
00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:06.800
but their marriage had been doomed from the start, a
79
00:06:06.920 --> 00:06:12.360
union arranged for dynastic purposes rather than genuine compatibility. She
80
00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:16.600
had been nineteen, practically a child. He had been thirty two,
81
00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:20.680
already set in his ways, already in love with someone else.
82
00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:24.279
Charles had tried to do his duty. He had married
83
00:06:24.279 --> 00:06:27.879
the suitable virgin bride, produced the air and the spare,
84
00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:31.040
but he could not make himself love her the way
85
00:06:31.079 --> 00:06:34.439
she needed to be loved, And Diana, trapped in a
86
00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:37.839
loveless marriage with a man who had always put Camilla first,
87
00:06:38.199 --> 00:06:43.720
had spiraled into desperation, bolimia, depression. The fairy tale had
88
00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:47.959
curdled into tragedy. When Diana died in that Paris car
89
00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:52.240
crash in nineteen ninety seven, Charles had felt genuine grief.
90
00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:56.079
She was the mother of his sons, and despite everything,
91
00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:59.240
he had cared for her. But mixed with the grief
92
00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:03.199
was relief and the guilt that came with that relief.
93
00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.519
Diana's death had freed him to eventually marry Camilla. How
94
00:07:08.519 --> 00:07:12.639
could he not feel conflicted about that? For William and Harry,
95
00:07:12.959 --> 00:07:17.879
their father's relationship with Camilla remained complicated. They had accepted
96
00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:21.959
her more or less because rejecting her would mean rejecting
97
00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:25.639
their father. But acceptance was not the same as affection.
98
00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:31.160
William in particular, maintained a careful distance. He was polite
99
00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:35.560
to Camilla, appropriate, but there was no warmth. How could
100
00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:38.920
there be when her existence was a constant reminder of
101
00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:44.680
his mother's unhappiness. Harry's feelings were more volatile. He had
102
00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:47.680
been just twelve when his mother died, young enough that
103
00:07:47.759 --> 00:07:53.000
the pain remained wraw even decades later. Camilla represented everything
104
00:07:53.240 --> 00:07:57.079
that had gone wrong in his parents marriage. His therapy
105
00:07:57.120 --> 00:07:59.759
sessions had forced him to confront his anger about his
106
00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:04.199
mine treatment, and Camilla was inextricably linked to that anger,
107
00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:08.800
whether that was entirely fair or not. By two thousand
108
00:08:08.839 --> 00:08:12.319
and sixteen, Charles was sixty seven years old. He had
109
00:08:12.360 --> 00:08:15.839
spent decades defending his love for Camilla, fighting for the
110
00:08:15.920 --> 00:08:18.839
right to marry her, working to make her acceptable to
111
00:08:18.879 --> 00:08:23.279
the public and the institution, but at what cost. His
112
00:08:23.399 --> 00:08:27.800
relationship with his sons was strained. His mother still treated
113
00:08:27.839 --> 00:08:31.160
him like a wayward child rather than the future king,
114
00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:34.360
and he was no closer to the throne than he
115
00:08:34.399 --> 00:08:38.879
had been when he married Camilla eleven years earlier. The
116
00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:42.399
question that haunted Charles was whether it had been worth it.
117
00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:46.399
He had chosen love over duty, or at least he
118
00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:49.440
had tried to have both, but in doing so he
119
00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:53.600
had damaged his relationships with his sons, disappointed his mother,
120
00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:57.679
and spent years in a kind of royal purgatory waiting
121
00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:02.039
for a role that never came. Meanwhile, across the royal family,
122
00:09:02.440 --> 00:09:07.399
other dramas simmered. Prince Philip, now ninety four, was slowing
123
00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:11.279
down but still completing royal engagements with the same gruff
124
00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:15.559
efficiency he had maintained for decades, but age was catching
125
00:09:15.639 --> 00:09:20.200
up with him. He was tired, frustrated by his body's betrayals.
126
00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:24.759
Increasingly aware that his time was running short, Philip had
127
00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:29.200
never been close to his children. His parenting style, shaped
128
00:09:29.240 --> 00:09:33.000
by his own difficult upbringing, had been distant and demanding.
129
00:09:33.879 --> 00:09:38.240
He had been particularly hard on Charles, whose sensitivity and
130
00:09:38.279 --> 00:09:41.919
emotionalism had seemed like weakness to a man who valued
131
00:09:41.960 --> 00:09:46.559
stoicism above all else. Now, watching his eldest sons still
132
00:09:46.600 --> 00:09:50.039
waiting to be king at sixty seven, Philip felt something
133
00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:55.519
he rarely acknowledged, regret. Had he been too harsh? Had
134
00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:59.159
his emotional coldness damaged Charles in ways that were now
135
00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:05.360
manifesting in the next generation, William's reluctance to embrace royal life,
136
00:10:05.799 --> 00:10:09.480
harry struggles with mental health, the distance between the brothers.
137
00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:12.720
Could any of that be traced back to the parenting
138
00:10:12.759 --> 00:10:17.440
failures of Philip's generation. These were not questions Philip would
139
00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:21.200
ever voice aloud, but in the privacy of his own thoughts.
140
00:10:21.639 --> 00:10:25.240
As his body grew weaker and death drew closer, he
141
00:10:25.279 --> 00:10:28.639
could not avoid them. His legacy was not just his
142
00:10:28.759 --> 00:10:32.679
decades of service to the crown, but the damaged relationships
143
00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:44.399
he left in his wake. Prince Andrew meanwhile, continued his
144
00:10:44.559 --> 00:10:48.759
royal duties, as the UK's Special Representative for Trade and Investment,
145
00:10:49.320 --> 00:10:53.799
but the whispers were growing louder. His associations, particularly his
146
00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:58.720
friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, had drawn increased scrutiny since allegations
147
00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:02.679
emerged in early two thirds fifteen. The Palace had issued
148
00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:07.399
strong denials, but questions persisted. Andrew appeared to believe that
149
00:11:07.440 --> 00:11:11.840
his royal status protected him from serious consequences. He had
150
00:11:11.879 --> 00:11:15.919
served in the Falklands War, completed thousands of royal engagements
151
00:11:16.039 --> 00:11:21.159
over the decades. Surely that service counted for something. Surely
152
00:11:21.200 --> 00:11:24.679
the institution would protect one of its own. But Palace
153
00:11:24.759 --> 00:11:29.080
officials were less certain. The questions about Andrew's judgment were
154
00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:33.840
not going away. If anything, they were intensifying. Some within
155
00:11:33.879 --> 00:11:38.440
the palace machinery worried that Andrew's associations might eventually become
156
00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:42.879
a crisis that even royal privilege could not deflect. For
157
00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:46.960
the Queen, watching her family navigate these various challenges, the
158
00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:51.360
burden was heavy. Charles's decade's long wait to be king,
159
00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:57.480
William's reluctance to fully embrace his role, Harry's struggles, Andrew's
160
00:11:57.600 --> 00:12:04.240
questionable associations, Philip's declining health, Camilla's still fragile public acceptance.
161
00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:08.639
It was too much, and she was eighty nine years old, tired,
162
00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:15.159
wondering how much longer she could hold it altogether. In Toronto,
163
00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:18.080
far removed from the dramas of the British royal family,
164
00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:23.679
the television series Suits was filming its sixth season. Megan Markle,
165
00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:27.799
who played paralegal Rachel Zane, had spent five years building
166
00:12:27.799 --> 00:12:31.000
her career on the show. She was also an activist
167
00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:35.600
and lifestyle blogger, carving out her own identity beyond acting.
168
00:12:36.159 --> 00:12:39.159
She had no idea that within months a mutual friend
169
00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:42.360
in London would suggest she meets someone, a meeting that
170
00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:45.000
would change not only her life, but the future of
171
00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:50.360
the British monarchy itself. Back at Clarence House, as the
172
00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:55.080
reception wound down and guests departed, Charles and Camilla stood together,
173
00:12:55.679 --> 00:12:59.799
united after decades of being kept apart. They had won.
174
00:13:00.200 --> 00:13:03.480
In a sense. They were married, she had a title.
175
00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:07.919
The public had grudgingly accepted them, but the victory felt hollow.
176
00:13:08.679 --> 00:13:12.080
Charles was sixty seven, with no idea when or if
177
00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:16.360
he would ever be king. Camilla was sixty eight, forever
178
00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.679
marked as the woman who destroyed a fairy tale. Their
179
00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:23.720
love story, which they had always believed was romantic, looked
180
00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:26.600
from the outside more like a tragedy that had claimed
181
00:13:26.679 --> 00:13:32.279
multiple casualties. Diana was dead, William was distant, Harry was
182
00:13:32.320 --> 00:13:35.759
struggling in ways he could no longer hide. The monarchy
183
00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:39.240
was fractured, and all Charles and Camilla had to show
184
00:13:39.240 --> 00:13:42.320
for it was each other, standing in an elegant room,
185
00:13:42.519 --> 00:13:46.279
surrounded by polite strangers who would never truly forgive them
186
00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:52.279
for what they represented. The rehabilitation of Camilla's image had
187
00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:56.720
been successful by most measures. She was no longer openly reviled.
188
00:13:57.200 --> 00:14:00.879
She carried out her duties with competence and grace. The
189
00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:04.320
press had largely moved on to other royal dramas, But
190
00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:08.919
success was not the same as redemption. Some stains, no
191
00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:12.000
matter how carefully you try to scrub them away, never
192
00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:17.120
fully disappear. As the couple prepared to leave the reception,
193
00:14:17.639 --> 00:14:21.360
making their way to a waiting car, photographers captured them
194
00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:25.519
side by side, smiling for the cameras. The images would
195
00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:29.879
run intomorrow's papers, evidence of a royal couple doing their duty.
196
00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:34.279
What the photographs could not capture was the weight they
197
00:14:34.360 --> 00:14:37.759
both carried the knowledge that their happiness had come at
198
00:14:37.799 --> 00:14:41.720
a price others had paid. Charles and Camilla had each other,
199
00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:45.759
but in winning that battle, they had lost so much else.
200
00:14:46.320 --> 00:14:49.440
And as they drove back through London streets, past the
201
00:14:49.519 --> 00:14:52.919
palace where Diana had lived, past the places where the
202
00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:56.759
fairy tale had unfolded and crumbled, they could not escape
203
00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.799
the question that haunted them both. Had it been worth
204
00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:08.440
it next time? On Crown and Controversy, Christmas at Sandringham
205
00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:12.039
has always brought the Royal family together, but for William
206
00:15:12.080 --> 00:15:15.559
and Harry, the holiday reveals how far apart they have grown,
207
00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:19.639
from their childhood bond forged in grief to the distance
208
00:15:19.720 --> 00:15:23.919
that now separates them. We trace the brother's relationship through
209
00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:27.840
years of festive gatherings, and as one Christmas bleeds into
210
00:15:27.879 --> 00:15:32.240
the next, the question becomes unavoidable. Can the closeness they
211
00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:35.759
once shared ever be recovered? Or has too much changed
212
00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:55.399
between the air and the spare. Crown and Controversy is
213
00:15:55.399 --> 00:16:00.759
a production of Calaoga Shark Media executive producers Mark Francis
214
00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:04.559
and John McDermott. While no one truly knows what happens
215
00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:09.159
behind closed palace doors, Crown and controversy, uses news sources,
216
00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:13.279
on the record, quotes, and some artistic license to craft
217
00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:18.360
this entertainment series. Some moments have been dramatized for storytelling effect.
218
00:16:19.000 --> 00:16:23.519
AI narration was used in this series, but it was written, produced, mixed,
219
00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:27.440
and designed by Mark and John. To keep up with
220
00:16:27.480 --> 00:16:31.440
the modern day Royal family, follow our podcast Palace Intrigue,
221
00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:35.320
a seven day a week, ten minute update on the Royals.