The proof Charles always had his eye on Camilla
It was one of the most memorable days in modern British history, when Prince Charles wed Princess Diana.
But while all eyes were on Charles and Diana as they made their way out of St Paul's Cathedral on July 29, 1981, there was a third person in the crowd that the newlyweds were looking out for - and both for different reasons.
Charles’ ex-girlfriend Camilla Parker-Bowles was wearing a pale grey suit and veiled pillbox hat that day. Her son Tom - who Charles had wanted to act as a pageboy but Diana refused – was on the chair next to her.
A photo from the day sees Charles looking across his new bride to catch her eye from across the pews.
Royal author Penny Junor explains that prince had a "slightly plaintive, sad look" on his face as he looked at his lover.
It was in that moment that he knew their affair was over – at least for the next few years – and that he would have to settle into life with Diana, a young woman so vastly different from himself and who was already in the throes of a serious eating disorder.
Diana meanwhile, recalls the moment from her perspective in the tapes she secretly recorded and sent to biographer Andrew Morton.
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In them she says, “As I walked up the aisle, I looked for her [Camilla]. I knew she was there of course.”
“Walking back down the aisle, I spotted her…To this day, you know – vivid memory.”
The newlyweds had fought over Camilla just a couple of weeks earlier. Diana had found a bracelet that Charles was giving her as a symbol of his appreciation for the role she’d played in his life.
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It was engraved with the initials of the pet names they had for each other, 'Gladys' and 'Fred', and as Diana describes in her tapes, she was furious.
“So rage, rage, rage! 'Why can't you be honest with me?' But no, [Charles] cut me absolutely dead,” she says.
“It's as if he had made his decision, and if it wasn't going to work, it wasn't going to work. He'd found the virgin, the sacrificial lamb”.
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