Camilla Will Be Queen

Tina Brown is a royal-watcher with credentials, she’s British and knows what the signals mean. Her recent Washington Post column surmises what will take place in the years ahead of Charles and Camilla.

“The prince’s intentions to crown Camilla have actually been clear all along. Item: the gift of the queen mother’s platinum-and-diamond ring. Item: the insistence on a grand wedding at Windsor Castle rather than sloping off to Scotland, the way his sister Princess Anne did for her second marriage, to Rear Adm. Timothy Laurence. Most telling item of all: the sly insertion of the words “it is intended that” she will be known as the Princess Consort — which every royal watcher knows should be translated as “That’s what we want you to think now, but not how it will turn out in the end.”

The more we see of Mrs. Parker Bowles in pictures that are not stolen moments of disarray or heading for her front door in Gloucestershire with a plastic bag over her head, the more obviously queenly she has started to appear. At her first official engagement at the prince’s side, on Monday at the Solemn Vespers for the Pope in Westminster Cathedral, her broad-brimmed black beribboned straw hat, knee-length black dress and fat, luxurious pearls gave her the regal air of big-time grande dame. With Camilla you have to reach for Edwardian adjectives. She is a Handsome Woman. A Real Charmer. A Fine Figure of a Gel. Promoted to the front page, she exudes the stately presence of the royal yacht.”