Any mortal who, on the eve of getting married, was forced to postpone their wedding for a day to attend a funeral instead, might have second thoughts about going through with the marriage. But Carlos de Inglaterra, the firstborn of the greatest queen in the history of the United Kingdom, in April 2005, had no doubts that Camilla Parker Bowles was to become his wife.
That the Heir to the Throne and the woman who was then the most hated in the country - as it was - were deeply in love, despite sounding overly sentimental, was an undeniable truth, tested during an intermittent relationship that had begun 30 years earlier, leading to a story of infidelities, personal tragedies, uninhibited sex, and endless scandals that shook the foundations of the centuries-old Monarchy that all others look up to.
But it was not enough for them to love each other. The Prince of Wales was destined to become king and, as such, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith. And although by then the Crown had shown more than enough resilience and ability to withstand almost anything, a sign of the profound transformation that British society was undergoing, it seemed excessive for the firstborn of Queen Elizabeth II to share his life with his "mistress," as some tabloids still derogatorily referred to Camilla. And, moreover, the love, yes, the deep love that the prince felt for her - love moves mountains - urged him to accept nothing less than giving her her rightful place. Against all odds, and almost indifferent to the fact that polls indicated in those days that the vast majority of citizens could not stand the stepmother of the story, whom they blamed for the unhappiness of the late People's Princess, Diana of Wales - who had died on August 31, 1997, in the shocking car accident in Paris, but almost eight years later her memory remained as vivid as ever. What a distorted version of history had embedded itself in the minds of the British in an era when rumors penetrated to the core when they were not even called rumors.
Wednesday marks 20 years since the most atypical royal wedding of all time. King Carlos III and Queen Camilla celebrate their china wedding anniversary, proud to have silenced all critics and to continue being protagonists of one of the most unique romantic novels of the Gotha.
The couple had everything arranged to get married a day earlier, but, as mentioned, at the last moment they had to postpone it by 24 hours due to the State funeral in the Vatican for Pope John Paul II, which Carlos attended on behalf of his mother.
Of course, that inconvenience to our protagonists must have seemed trivial after the obstacle course they had to overcome to materialize a wedding that seemed doomed. Absolutely everything was against them. The widespread rejection of the population. The opposition to the marriage of the groom's children - Prince Harry recounts in his memoir, "In the Shadow," how he and his brother William begged their father to be happy with Camilla, but not to marry her. The existential doubts of Queen Elizabeth... And the endless more specific obstacles.
First, there was a national debate about the nature of the wedding. The Archbishop of Canterbury - then the Welshman Rowan Williams - established that according to the guidelines of the Church of England, a religious marriage was completely impossible - remember that Carlos was already a widower but Camilla, a divorced woman - although he agreed that the Church would bless the union after the civil marriage was consummated. Once such an important decision was made, the sovereign insisted that the wedding be held in Windsor to have much less pomp than a royal wedding in London. But even that was problematic. When everything was well arranged, the couple had to change plans to hold the civil ceremony outside the Castle, at the Guildhall in Windsor, as it was warned that otherwise, Queen Elizabeth II would be forced to open her precious palace for three years to other civil weddings requested by citizens. That was the limit for the monarch.
And even more. The legal controversy - with debates even in the Westminster Parliament - about whether a member of the royal family could enter into a civil marriage, as voices were raised to denounce that it violated the 1836 Marriage Act. Suddenly, experts sprouted up throughout the Kingdom like mushrooms, and most eventually leaned towards the argument that the repeal of that law by another in 1949 allowed at least a loophole of doubt, a legal crack through which Carlos and Camilla's "I do" slipped.
They had been living together for two years. But it was not until Christmas 2004 that the Heir informed his entire family that he was going to get married, already with the queen's approval. The official announcement, after the holidays, shocked the United Kingdom. It is always delightful to delve into the archives. And with current eyes, it is almost hilarious to reread the newspaper chronicles of that time, in which what was most emphasized was that Camilla, now Carlos's wife, would hold the title of Duchess of Cornwall and that of princess when her husband assumed the throne, but she would never be queen. And it was because Buckingham Palace was very aware that less than 10% of the British population accepted such a possibility at that time. The specter of Diana did not fade away.
The same naive effect is present in the statements of Prince Charles's spokesperson, Paddy Harverson, in early 2005, in which he denied that there would be any public relations campaign in favor of Camilla from the Palace, because that "would not be appropriate," he stated. Of course, reality was quite different. Clarence House had hired a PR genius, Mark Bolland, a brilliant image consultant who managed to make the British public start accepting Camilla through the so-called Ritz operation - for the first official photo of Carlos and the woman he loved, in 1999, outside the legendary hotel. That strategy lasted 20 years. And it was more than successful.
The wedding bore no resemblance to the wedding of the century of the Heir with the youthful Diana in 1981. In the civil ceremony with Camilla, barely 24 people were present - not even Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, attended. And although 800 people were invited to the religious blessing ceremony at St. George's Chapel in Windsor, there were many foreign royals, and only a solemn moment of it was broadcast on television. All to minimize the prominence of an event in which, nonetheless, a radiant Camilla (57 years old, one year older than Carlos) was seen in a long blue dress with gold embroidery by Robinson Valentine, a well-chosen outfit, and a spectacular headdress that replaced any tiara that would not have been well-received. Nothing ruined the happiness of the couple on that April 9. Not even headlines like the Daily Express that were bloodthirsty: What would Diana say?
Three decades that would provide material for many chapters of The Crown were left behind, from the day they met and Camilla retorted, "Did you know that my great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was the lover of your great-grandfather?" to the stormy relationship between the Heir and Diana that, before their divorce and before the fairy tale in which the princes were actually frogs burst in the public eye, had episodes like the conversation between Carlos and Camilla - illegally leaked but there forever - in which he fantasized about living inside her forever "like a tampon."
Battle against cancer on the throne
Inevitably, illness is marking the reign of Carlos III, a king against too many adversities, who is showing great determination at the helm of the Crown. The royal couple celebrates their china wedding anniversary in the midst of a State visit to Italy, which began on Monday. A trip in which, however, the iconic meeting planned with Pope Francis will no longer take place, as he continues to recover at the Santa Marta residence.