The royals - Kitty Kelley [272]
Sensing the need to repair Camilla’s image, Charles hired public-relations specialists, wardrobe stylists, makeup artists, and hairdressers; then he dispatched her with his two top aides on a trip to Manhattan, where she was received by high society’s doyenne, Brooke Astor, then ninety-eight years old. Charles did not realize that Mrs. Astor was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s at the time. Having lost her usual diplomatic skills, she greeted Camilla by referring to the illicit love affair between Camilla’s great-grandmother Alice Keppel and Charles’s great-great-grandfather Edward VII. “Your great-grandmother would have been proud keeping this mistress business in the family,” said Mrs. Astor. Camilla accepted the gaffe graciously and bathed in the public acceptance of New York City’s reigning hostess.
Charles had not made an official trip to the U.S. since he accompanied the Princess of Wales to the Reagan White House in 1985, when she captivated America by dancing with John Travolta. The Prince wanted the same kind of acclaim for Camilla, but her trip to the U.S. in 1999 lacked the excitement and glamour Diana had stirred.
Having brought his young sons around, Charles now spent the next several years brokering his remarriage, with the Queen, the British government, and the Church of England in order to meet the arcane demands of his role as heir apparent. Finally, the wedding day was set for April 8, 2005. Charles, then fifty-six, insisted that his fifty-seven-year-old fiancée be given royal status, but rather than be called H.R.H. the Princess of Wales, as protocol demanded, Mrs. Parker Bowles chose to be known as the Duchess of Cornwall, after one of Charles’s lesser titles, the one that Diana had rejected during her divorce negotiations.
Since Charles and Camilla were both divorced, and neither was an “innocent party” in the dissolution, they could not marry in the Church of England. So they had a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle followed by a service of prayer and dedication performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in St. George’s Chapel. Then Charles’s office announced that the Duchess of Cornwall would be known as the Princess Consort and upon his accession to the throne she would not be crowned Queen. This was to pacify the hard-core Diana segment within Britain, but anyone who believed that Camilla would not be called Queen when Charles became King believed that corgis flew over the White Cliffs of Dover.
Conscious of the Queen’s position as head of the Church of England, the palace announced that she would not attend her son’s wedding, but she would attend his prayer service. On the other hand, Charles’s siblings, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward, announced they would attend their brother’s wedding along with his sons, Princes William and Harry.
At the last minute the wedding was postponed by a day so Charles could fly to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II as the Queen’s representative. As King, Charles will become known as “Defender of the Faith,” which currently means only the Anglican faith. He has said more than once he wants to be anointed as “Defender of all Faiths,” including Roman Catholicism from which Henry VIII separated England during the sixteenth century.
Having lived his life waiting for his mother to die so that he could assume the only job allowed him by the hereditary principle, Charles tried to make himself look like a man of the people in order to stop the burgeoning movement of Republic, a nonpartisan group pushing for Parliament to end the monarchy upon the death of the present queen.
“Campaigning for a democratic alternative to inherited power and privilege in Britain,” Republic drew attention to the vast millions of taxpayer monies spent to support the royal family. The group also published polls showing the majority of Britons felt the Windsors should pay their own way. In 2008, the total cost to taxpayers for supporting the royal family was approximately $65 million. Republic’s opinion polls showed:
80.7% believed Charles should pay the same taxes