Queen Camilla’s three-word nickname given to her by aides at Clarence House has been revealed, as a friend shared the “secret” to her success.
Following the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022, Camilla assumed that title as Charles became king. In his inaugural address, Charles III acknowledged his wife’s “loving help” as well as her “loyal public service.”
On May 6, 2023, she was crowned Queen Camilla after the coronation of King Charles III. However, journalist and author Hilary Rose argued that “for a long time” she didn’t seem destined to take the title with the late Queen even referring to her once as “that wicked woman”.
However, the author of the new book The Secret Diary of Queen Camilla said the pair then bonded over a shared love of horses and dogs. This led to Elizabeth announcing in 2022 that it was her “sincerest wish” that when Prince Charles took the throne, Duchess Camilla would have the title Queen Consort.
Since taking the role, the Queen Consort has had to take a leading role as a working Royal following her husband King Charles’s cancer diagnosis. In March, Princess Kate revealed she had also been diagnosed with cancer, with Prince William taking more time to care for his wife and their three children.
With Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announcing their exit as working royals in January 2022 and Princess Anne’s hospital visit in June following her fall from a horse, Ms Rose said that Queen Camilla “stepped up her duties with cheerful good humour and the energy of someone considerably younger”.
Writing in the Daily Mail, she said: “She is known by some aides at Clarence House as ‘the lady boss’, and a friend says that she has succeeded ‘just by being herself’. Camilla was not, they added, someone who could be pushed about, but nor was she liable to have a hissy fit.
“After the histrionics of Harry and Meghan and the disaster that is Prince Andrew, it came as a relief to have someone in the palace who kept calm and carried on.
“‘She is resilient, and she was brought up with this extraordinary sense of duty,’ the Marchioness of Lansdowne told The Sunday Times shortly before the coronation. ‘It has stood her in very good stead.'”
“As Tina Brown observed in her book The Palace Papers, if Camilla had a family motto it would be ‘thou shalt not whine’.”
On Saturday, November 28, Camilla was at Holyrood as Charles addressed MSPs as he took part in a ceremony to mark the Scottish Parliament’s ‘milestone’ 25th anniversary.
He spoke about the “challenges we all share as inhabitants of a planet whose climate is changing dangerously, and whose biodiversity is being seriously depleted”.
But the King, who was dressed in a kilt for the occasion, said he hoped this would be “the beginning of the next chapter”. His comments came in a speech where he spoke of the “uniquely special place” Scotland is for the royal family.