“The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.” With that Buckingham Palace statement on 8 September 2022, Camilla had a new title.
It was not the one anyone expected in 2005. When she married Charles that year and became Duchess of Cornwall, Clarence House made clear she would be known as Princess Consort once he was king. The plan changed in February 2022, when Queen Elizabeth II marked 70 years on the throne with a message saying it was her “sincere wish” that Camilla be Queen Consort.
What the title means
Queen Consort is the title of a king’s wife. She shares his status and holds the female equivalent of many of his titles, but not his political or military powers, which in modern times mostly sit with the prime minister anyway. She is crowned and anointed alongside him at the coronation.
A queen, by contrast, is a woman who rules in her own right. Elizabeth II inherited the throne from her father and was queen by blood, not marriage. Her husband, Prince Philip, never became king for a related reason: men married to British queens carry only the title of Prince Consort.
A reversal
Public feeling about Camilla had been cool in 2005. Eight years had passed since the death of Princess Diana, and some people held Camilla partly to blame for the collapse of that marriage. Charles had publicly admitted adultery in 1994, saying his relationship with Camilla began after his marriage to Diana had broken down “irretrievably.”
Camilla had earlier been married to Andrew Parker Bowles. They had two children, Thomas and Laura, and divorced in 1995. She and Charles went public as a couple in 1999 after a careful PR campaign, and married in a civil ceremony in 2005.
Royal experts reportedly advised the Queen that years of charitable work and campaigning meant the Queen Consort title, announced in the Platinum Jubilee year, could finally win Camilla public favour. In January 2022 the Queen had also said Camilla would join the Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry. Historian Robert Lacey told the BBC the Queen had been thinking about the importance of a consort after losing her own. “They call it the Firm,” he said, “and this really brings Camilla into the Firm properly.” Clarence House said Charles and Camilla were “touched and honoured.”
In his first address to the nation, Charles paid tribute to his “darling wife.” He said: “In recognition of her own loyal public service since our marriage 17 years ago, she becomes my Queen Consort. I know she will bring to the demands of her new role the steadfast devotion to duty on which I have come to rely so much.”
Asked whether she might one day be known simply as Queen, a spokesperson for the King did not rule it out. “That will be a question for the future,” the spokesperson said. Camilla, they added, was visibly moved after meeting people outside Buckingham Palace the day before.
