Fifty years ago today, the most talked about society wedding of the season was taking place. Captain Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla Shand (now Queen Camilla) exchanged vows in front of 800 guests at the Guards' Chapel at Wellington Barracks in London.
Under the auspices of chairman Andrew Parker Bowles, a former Hampshire military hospital is being transformed into a waterside village
The bride and groom both had ties to the Royal Family. Andrew Parker Bowles’ parents were friends of the Queen Mother, he served as a page to Queen Elizabeth II at the coronation, and he once dated the Princess Royal. Meanwhile Camilla had been linked to the then Prince Charles. Now, of course, the pair are married and reign as King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Parker Bowles, a British Army officer who would rise to the rank of Brigadier, had met Camilla in the late 1960s, although the couple only announced their engagement in 1973. On 4 July 1943, Andrew and Camilla married in a Roman Catholic ceremony, followed by a reception at St James’s Palace. The couple’s position as royal insiders was reflected in the guest list on their wedding day, with the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Princess Anne all in attendance. The wedding was depicted in Season 3 of Netlflix’s The Crown.
A holiday home is reportedly due to be built just yards away from the Queen Camilla’s Wiltshire bolthole, Ray Mill House
Camilla wore a white dress with a pie-crust neck, long sleeves, and a ruffled hem. On her head, she wore a sweeping floor-length white veil, which was adorned with the Cubitt-Shand Tiara, sometimes referred to as the Cubitt Tiara. The diamond sparkler was added to Camilla’s family collection by her grandmother, Sonia Keppel Cubitt, which was then passed down through her daughter Rosalind Shand (Camilla’s mother). Years later, it was worn by Camilla’s daughter, Laura, in 2006 when she married Harry Lopes.
Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles were married from 1973 to 1995, during which time they lived at Middlewick House, a Grade II-listed Georgian-style house in Wiltshire. They had two children together: food writer Tom Parker Bowles, who is King Charles's godson, and art curator Laura Lopes. They also share five grandchildren: Lola and Freddy Parker Bowles, and Eliza, Louis and Gus Lopes. Freddy, Louis and Gus, were among the eight pages of honour at the coronation.
A royal insider, Andrew Parker Bowles witnessed his ex-wife being crowned Queen and his grandsons serve as Pages of Honour
In 1995, Camilla and Andrew divorced. Camilla bought a private country home named Ray Mill House in Wiltshire, 15 minutes away from King Charles’s house, Highgrove. Andrew went on to remarry Rosemary Pitman in 1996, who died in 2010 from cancer (Camilla was in attendance at Pitman's funeral). Camilla, meanwhile, went on to wed King Charles III (then Prince Charles) in 2005.
Despite their divorce, Andrew and Camilla maintain a cordial relationship to this day. Earlier this year, Andrew was among the guests who gathered at Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King Charles III. His presence reflected his enduring place at the heart of the royal circle – and his lasting friendship with his first wife. In October 2022, a listing in the Court Circular revealed that Andrew had represented the then Queen Consort at the Funeral of John Bowes-Lyon, a third cousin of the King.
Queen Camilla bestowed the honour on Juno, the first mare to be made a Drum Horse in the Household Cavalry
Lady Lansdowne, a close friend of Camilla’s, told the Times this April: ‘Everybody loves Andrew, he’s a real charmer, but he’s always terribly misbehaving. Andrew will ring [Camilla] up and tell her when she’s got something wrong and she’ll ring him up and say when he’s misbehaving. Through adversity they’ve kept a really good family ethic. It helps with their children and grandchildren.’
