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Prince Charles plays down ‘Queen Camilla’ wish
It was a slip - and not a smart one. New poll shows few people want Camilla as queen
Clarence House has rushed to play down the significance of a comment made by Prince Charles during an American TV interview, when he appeared to suggest that his second wife could become Queen Camilla when he ascends to the throne.
It is known that the Prince of Wales has long confided in close friends that he hopes Camilla might be crowned queen beside him. But the official line has always been - and remains - that she would be known as his Princess Consort.
This is the first time Charles has expressed his private hope in public - and it came out in an unguarded moment.
Charles was talking at the Castle of Mey, his grandmother's former Scottish home, when Brian Williams of NBC TV asked him point blank: Would Camilla be Queen?
Charles stammered: "That's, that's, we'll see, won't we? That could be."
Any suggestion that Charles was trying to exploit the current warm feeling towards his family following this week's news of Prince William's engagement is wide of the mark. The interview was recorded in August.
In an attempt to get his boss off the hook, a spokesman at Clarence House said: "Nothing has changed. The intention absolutely remains that the Duchess be known as Princess Consort when the Prince becomes king.
"However we have always made it clear that when the day comes, whatever the circumstances are at the time, the Government would have the final say on the title the Duchess uses."
While the general public has generally come to accept Charles marrying his former mistress - the "third person" in his marriage to Princess Diana, as she once famously put it - the Royal Family is aware that a majority would never accept her being crowned queen, whatever Charles's wishes.
A Harris poll for the Daily Mail today shows that only 14 per cent of people support the idea. Worse still for Charles and Camilla, nearly half those polled - especially women - hope that when the Queen dies, the monarchy will pass straight to William and Kate. ·
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Personally when the day comes that Charles is crowned King (as the heir to the throne and first in the line of succession, HE is the next in line, not William), I very much hope that Camilla IS crowned Queen beside him. She would be Queen Consort not Queen in her own right. Nowhere have I seen a suggestion that Charles wants his mother to step aside in his favour, so where that idea comes from I don't know. Finally I would like to point out that whoever succeeds Queen Elizabeth II is not a matter for popular vote. It's not a 'reality show', it's a constitutional matter. Time the British public learned the difference.
I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland Prince Charles has been waiting all his life to be king. Brian Williams was told not to say anything about him being king. Sounds to me that he wants mummy to step down and retire which I am sure she will not do. The queen has done a very good job, Prince charles is stuffy and boring and he does talk to his plants. We all want to see Prince William to be king and by pass prince charles this is not going to happen. The royal family makes there own rules and regulations as they go along only to suit them. One day Prince Charles will make camilla Queen whether we like it or not. I am sure there will be a big up roar in the UK.