Prince Charles's wife has much to celebrate at 60

London, July 15: What a difference a decade has made for Camilla, once reviled as the mistress, blamed for breaking up the fairytale marriage of Princess Diana to heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles.

As the Duchess of Cornwall turns 60 on Tuesday, she is an accepted member of the royal family, the press is positive and the public see a matronly figure whose support for Charles has put a smile back on the face of "The Prince of Wails." It is all a far cry from the turbulent days when Diana called Camilla "The Rottweiler" and she was reported to have been pelted with bread rolls by enraged shoppers when she ventured into a supermarket, a tale denied by her friends.

"There will always be a hard core of people who were Diana devotees and who like to believe that Camilla was the root of all evil. But I think the majority recognise it was not that simple," royal biographer Penny Junior told Reuters.

"There is no comparison with Camilla at 50 and now. She is acceptable to the public. There were people who thought she was after something in her pursuit of the prince. But she is happy to support him and has no personal ambition." After Charles' bitter 1996 divorce, royal spin doctors began cautiously campaigning to win more public support for Camilla.

But Diana's sudden death in a Paris car crash in 1997, prompted an unprecedented outpouring of public grief and torpedoed any chance of promoting a more visible role for Camilla.

As memories of the tangled love triangle gradually faded, Charles insisted his relationship with Camilla, who he first met at a polo match back in the 1970s, was "non-negotiable".

Charles and Camilla, both emerging from failed marriages, finally wed in April 2005 after a turbulent affair that had lasted on and off for 35 years.

Gyles Brandreth, author of a 2005 book about Charles and Camilla, has argued: "What could have destabilised the monarchy has actually strengthened it - The House of Windsor has shown its adaptability.

"The woman who once cowered in a supermarket car park while strangers threw bread rolls at her now stands on the balcony at Buckingham Palace waving to crowds below. You could not make it up."

REUTERS

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