Although many details are yet to be announced, the guest list for the Coronation of King Charles III already reads like a who’s who of international royalty, world leaders, charity champions and certain carefully selected aristocrats.
But taking one VIP place will be what might seem a more unexpected guest: Andrew Parker Bowles, Queen Camilla’s former husband.
Camilla, 75, and Andrew, 83, divorced in 1995 after 22 years of marriage, but remain close friends – despite a complicated history which included infidelity on both parts.
This will be Parker Bowles’s second Coronation at Westminster Abbey as, aged 13, he was one of the pages when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953.
Andrew Parker Bowles and Camilla were married for 22 years and had two children, Tom and Laura, before they divorced in 1995
The pair dated on and off for several years before marrying at the Guards’ Chapel in 1973
Camilla was famously Charles’s mistress during her marriage to Andrew, while the latter is described by friends as having been ‘very naughty with women’ throughout.
They have two children: food writer Tom, 48 and Laura Lopes, 45, an artist.
Tom’s son Freddy, 13, and Laura’s twin sons Gus and Louis, also 13, will be Camilla’s pages of honour at the coronation, carrying the train of her robes.
The author Tina Brown has claimed it was Andrew, rather than Charles, who was the love of Camilla’s life. Whatever the truth, the man Brown describes as ‘a walking pink gin’ is said to remain one of her chief confidantes.
‘They are joined at the hip,’ according to a friend. ‘He arranges so much for her. They have lunch together the whole time. He’s right in there. He was always, and still is, Camilla’s co-conspirator.’
Known as ‘The Brigadier’ in reference to his former career as an army officer who served with the Blues and Royals and was awarded a Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in Zimbabwe, Andrew has moved in royal circles for decades.
As a 13-year-old, he served as a page to Lord Simonds, then the Lord High Chancellor, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
‘My mother was a good friend of the Duke of Norfolk,’ he recalled. ‘The Lord Chancellor had no children so Bernard Norfolk suggested me to Lord Simonds. I have to say that he was the nicest man alive and gave me a very nice set of cufflinks.’
As a 13-year-old, Andrew served as a page to Lord Simonds, then the Lord High Chancellor, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II
Once, regarded as something of a ladies man, Parker Bowles had a brief fling with Princess Anne before marrying Camilla. The pair, pictured on Derby Day at Epsom, remain great friends
Parker Bowles, a dashing figures as a young man, played polo on the same team as Prince Charles. Here he is pictured (right) with the prince on a royal visit to Kenya in 1971
Parker Bowles served as an officer with the Household Cavalry. Here he is seen in uniform standing directly behind Charles at Zimbabwe’s independence ceremony in 1980
As a commanding officer of the Blue and Royals, Andrew (pictured in the middle background) accompanied the newly married Charles and Diana on horseback following their wedding
Author Tina Brown claims it was Andrew Parker Bowles rather than Charles who had been the love of Camilla’s life
He described a sword fight during the dress rehearsal, saying: ‘All the pages had these little swords. If a group of bored small boys all have swords, you know what’s going to happen.’
Prior to marrying Camilla, he had a brief fling with Princess Anne, but his Catholicism is said to have dampened the prospects of marriage. They remain great friends, however, and she later named him godfather to her daughter Zara.
He also played polo on the same team as Charles when both men were young and rode in the Grand National in 1969, coming 11th.
He first met Camilla in the late 1960s and they dated on and off for several years before marrying in 1973.
According to Andrew’s cousin John Bowes Lyon, the couple were pressured into making the commitment when both their fathers published an engagement notice for them in The Times.
‘His hand publicly forced, Andrew proposed to his girlfriend of nearly seven years,’ wrote the author Sarah Bedell Smith.
‘Camilla was very much in love with [Andrew],’ Bowes Lyon told Smith. ‘Her parents were very keen that Andrew should marry her.’
The Queen Mother, Princess Anne and Princess Margaret all attended their wedding, and the reception took place in St James’s Palace.
Camilla spent a period as Charles’s mistress during her marriage to Andrew. Pictured: Charles and Camilla leaving a London theatre in 1975
Andrew Parker Bowles is pictured with the Queen Mother at Sandown Park in 1995
Charles attended the wedding of Andrew and Camilla’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, in 2005
Andrew was a guest at Charles and Camilla’s wedding in April 2005. He is pictured here after attending the service of blessing at St George’s Chapel, Windsor
Pictured at the Cheltenham Festival in 2020, Andrew and Camilla remain close friends. One friend described them as ‘joined at the hip’
As a commanding officer of the Household Cavalry, Andrew accompanied the newly married Charles and Diana on horseback following their wedding in 1981.
Tina Brown claimed that Camilla only resumed her affair with Charles because she was angry at her husband’s infidelities.
Once seen as a dashing figure and something of a ladies man, Parker Bowles is said to have provided at least some of the inspiration for Rupert Campbell-Black, a character in Jilly Cooper’s bonkbuster Riders.
Andrew and Camilla divorced in 1995, saying in a statement that ‘throughout our marriage we have always tended to follow rather different interests, but in recent years we have led completely separate lives.’
The following year, he married his long-term mistress Rosemary Pitman. They were together until Rosemary passed away in 2010 of cancer, aged 69.
At the time of her death it was reported that Camilla was ‘deeply saddened’ by the news.
Andrew was a guest at Charles and Camilla’s wedding in April 2005, attending their service of blessing at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.
The Marchioness of Lansdowne, one of Camilla’s Queen’s Companions, has said: ‘Everybody loves Andrew. He’s a real charmer but he’s always terribly misbehaving.
‘Andrew will ring her up and tell her when she’s got something wrong and she’ll ring him up and say when he’s misbehaving.
‘Through adversity they’ve kept a really good family ethic. It helps with their children and grandchildren.’
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