Princess Diana dubbed her the ‘Rottweiler’ after the aggressive German breed of dog. Angry women were said to have tossed bread rolls at her in a supermarket parking lot. Caricatured as a frumpy marriage wrecker, the third wheel in the doomed marriage of Charles and Diana, Camilla Parker Bowles was, for a time, the most hated woman in Britain, only leaving her home under the cover of darkness.

Yet in early May of next year, she will be crowned England’s next queen in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey officiated over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest ranking cleric in the land.

We can imagine that Queen Elizabeth II would be quietly pleased with her handiwork. For it was the late queen who gave Camilla the final stamp of approval in February, when she expressed her “sincere wish” that  Camilla  would be crowned queen “when the day comes.” Although it had taken decades to have reached that place of acceptance, it was an edict that brooked no opposition. As Camilla would be the first to admit, her elevation was by no means a slam dunk. Quite the opposite. 

In the early days, the queen was on friendly terms with Camilla and her then-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. Over the years, she even gave the couple two corgis, Danny and Windsor Flame, as Camilla shared the queen’s love of dogs and horses. 

All that changed when Camilla was revealed as the other woman in the stormy marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Camilla became persona non grata in the mid-90s, shunned from formal royal parties and other functions. As Camilla’s biographer Penny Junor noted: “It was nothing personal. She had been very fond of Camilla in all the years she had been married to Andrew, but it was Camilla who had been responsible, wittingly or not, for all the disasters that had befallen the prince since his marriage.” With Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in 1997, the question of whether Charles and Diana would have remained together as a couple had Camilla not been on the scene would never be answered.  

In the days following Diana’s death, the queen felt that Charles’ desire for self-fulfillment was in danger of damaging the foundations of the monarchy, a view that was shared by her husband and senior advisors, notably her private secretary, Sir Robert Fellowes. It was a case of love her, but leave her. 

At Charles’ official 50^th birthday party for an estimated 850 guests at Buckingham Palace in November 1998, just fifteen months after Diana’s death, few attendees would have sensed the tension between mother and son. While the monarch praised her son for his “diligence, compassion and leadership,” relations behind the scenes were frosty. Her absence at the party spoke volumes, especially as the prince had made it abundantly clear during a revealing TV documentary that Camilla wasn’t going anywhere. It remained a thorny issue.

Personal feelings aside, the queen realized instinctively that the British public would not accept the public unveiling of his new partner so soon after Diana’s tragic death. A palace briefing to a BBC documentary at the time revealed that the queen had not formally met with Camilla, nor would she even appear at the same function. In fact, it was revealed that Camilla had not been on the guest list of either Her Majesty or the Queen Mother for the last fifteen years or so. It seemed that the queen had firmly closed the gate on any regal recognition of Camilla and Charles — at least for the foreseeable future.

The queen knew her people. She had faced a similar issue at the beginning of her reign when her sister Princess Margaret had wanted to marry Battle of Britain pilot Group Captain Peter Townsend. He was a divorcé in the early 1950s, a time when divorce was frowned on by both Church and State. Margaret eventually wearied of the struggle to maintain her relationship with the war ace, but Charles and Camilla were a different proposition. The prince made it clear to his family that the couple was in it for the long haul — she was his partner for life. 

Finally, on June 3, 2000 Camilla came face-to-face with the queen for the first time since 1992. The venue was a barbecue at Highgrove to celebrate the  60^th birthday of the former king of Greece, King Constantine. The queen smiled at the princes’ “companion at Court,” Camilla curtsied, and they briefly made small talk. Though there was a thaw, she was still left out in the cold at formal royal functions. There was no invite for Camilla at grand birthday parties held at Windsor Castle, nor was there a place for her at the official 100th birthday celebrations for the Queen Mother. Indeed, the Countess of Wessex told an undercover reporter that they would only marry after the death of the “old lady,” referring to the Queen Mother. Her forecast proved correct. Shortly after her death in March 2002, Camilla was at last included in the royal party, which celebrated the queen’s golden jubilee. At a concert outside Buckingham Palace in June 2002, she was seen mouthing the words to Phil Collins’ song “You Can’t Hurry Love.”

Things were moving along at a quicker pace, thanks to a decision by the Church of England to take a more relaxed view of divorced couples marrying in church. For years, the queen had been balancing her son’s future happiness with her role as monarch and head of the Church of England. Now she could act to end Camilla’s long wait. During an audience with Charles at Sandringham on Christmas 2004, the queen gave permission for them to marry.

It was almost the end of a long, uncertain march, with the prospect of a happy future for the couple now beckoning. They married in a civil ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor in April 2005. Camilla, who had become accustomed to being the butt of criticism, was delighted at the warmth of her reception by the waiting crowds. 

The queen was also relieved, as any negative publicity would have had a direct impact on the monarchy. Still, she was aware that the Camilla issue remained a touchy subject with many of her subjects. The official word from the palace was that there were no plans to make Camilla queen. When William and Harry invited Camilla to a memorial service for their mother in August 2007, Camilla initially accepted. However widespread criticism of her decision — led by Diana’s friend Rosa Monckton, who declared that the late princess would have been “astonished” — forced her to pull out.

In their different ways, both the queen and Camilla — who was conferred with the title Duchess of Cornwall after the marriage — were in it for the long game, a strategy which matched their conservative, rather cautious personalities. At public events involving the royal family, the duchess — for so long a royal outsider — was now on easy and convivial terms with the queen and other members of the family. 

With the queen, there was always the personal and the persona, the monarch separating the individual from the position. In 2012, she elevated Camilla to the Privy Council, the monarch’s most senior advisory body, comprised mainly of senior politicians. It was a thoughtful gesture, as it meant that she was entitled to be present at the Accession Council, held at St. James Palace, to hear the proclamation of the new sovereign — and to be one of the witnesses who would duly recognize King Charles III. This came to pass in September. 

Prior to that, in December 2021, Camilla was appointed a Royal Lady of the Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior order of chivalry in Britain, established by King Edward III in 1348. These appointments are in the gift of the sovereign, those chosen singled out for their contribution to national life. Just a few short months later, this past February,  the queen announced that she wished Camilla to take on the styling of queen consort when Charles ascended the throne. 

It was the final piece of constitutional housekeeping undertaken by a woman who liked things to be neat and tidy — every Christmas she was given a pair of rubber gloves so she could do the washing up at family barbecues. Her handling of the Camilla question was typical of the queen’s personality; shrewd, cautious and correct.

In her quiet, subtle way she tested both her son and his paramour before allowing Camilla into the royal fold. That she has been largely accepted as queen is testimony to the good sense and judgement of Elizabeth II. When Camilla walks down the aisle at Westminster Abbey in six months, husband King Charles III by her side, she will know that she has much to thank her mother-in-law for. 

Andrew Morton is the author of “The Queen, Her Life,” which will be published by Grand Central on Tuesday.