Camilla Parker Bowles Manifested the Life of a 'Queen' Long Before She Married King Charles: Author

Camilla Parker Bowls, now the Queen Consort, knew what she wanted in life early on. Although there is still little that people know of her except that she was the "third person" in King Charles and Princess Diana's tumultuous marriage, a journalist, who wrote multiple books on the royal family, told Vanity Fair Camilla manifested a quintessential "Queen" life before she met Charles. 

Penny Junor wrote the book The Duchess which is a definitive biography of Camilla. In it, he describes what her early life was like, her royal connection, and her ambitions in life. According to one of the excerpts, the Queen Consort "couldn't have been less interested in the idea of a career. She wasn't itching to travel...and had no desire to go to university." 

Instead, she imagined a life of luxury and relaxation as Junor further writes in the book, "She wanted no more from life than to be happily married to an upper-class man and live a sociable life in the country with horses, dogs, children, and someone to look after them all and do the hard graft." And she's now been living her dream life alongside the King of the UK.

Camilla, born Camilla Rosemary Shand, has a royal connection. Her ancestors were descendants of the royal Stuart bloodline, who ruled England from 1603 to 1714. Belonging to an upper-middle-class family, she grew up as a boisterous kid as Junor affirmed, "As a little girl she marched happily into school without looking back. She galloped her pony and flew over jumps without an anxious thought. She charged into the sea and laughed at the waves." 

The now-77-year-old met King Charles, the most eligible bachelor back then, at a polo match in 1970. They clicked instantly and the attraction was relatively more on Charles' side who admired 16 months older Camilla. Junor writes in the book, "Charles loved that Camilla smiled with her eyes as well as her mouth, and laughed at the same silly things he did." 

Although they began dating soon after, Junor claimed Charles' great-uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten, prevented their relationship because Camilla was neither a virgin nor aristocratic enough. Camilla was first married to Andrew Parker Bowles, an Army Calvary officer, who reportedly had an image of a womanizer and dated a few of the royal women like Princess Anne at the time. 

Despite that, they remained in contact throughout the 70s and later rekindled their buried romance. Junor claims in the book that Charles and Camilla were like the best of friends, "She treated him like a normal person, as she had when they were together, and if ever he behaved badly, or was selfish or thoughtless, she wasn't afraid to tell him so. She was a proper friend." 

Amid Charles and Diana's devastating marriage, the monarch found solace in Camilla, "He was in the depth of depression when his marriage was failing, and she pulled him out of that and made him laugh again." And Diana wasn't oblivious to their bond as she once told royal biographer Andrew Morton she confronted Camilla, "'I would just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on,'" Diana said to Camilla, per E! News.

So, why Camilla didn't leave Charles? Because the now-king loved and needed her and she once told a friend, "It's wonderful to be loved." Years later, in April 2005, they tied the knot in a royal ceremony.