This guest post is from Family Law student Kimberly
Sloan Lambert:
Ephesians
4:12 says, “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” When that third
strand is another human instead of Jesus Christ, the cord is, in fact, easily
broken – even when it’s royal.
Timelines of the Romances (Yes, Both
Romances)
From the
beginning, the Prince was in love with someone else.
In 1970,
Prince Charles and Camilla Shand met during one of Prince Charles’s polo matches.[1] At the
time, she was interested in Retired Navy Officer Andrew Parker-Bowles but ended
their relationship after meeting Charles. The two begin dating. Ironically
enough, Charles joins the Navy two years later and ends his relationship with
Camilla. One year later, she marries Andrew Parker-Bowles.
November
1977, Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer met in Northamptonshire, England. [2] At the
time of their meeting, Prince Charles was dating Lady Diana’s older sister,
Sarah. Prince Charles ended his
relationship with Sarah in February 1978 after Sarah disclosed to the press
that she would not marry Prince Charles, “if he were the dustman or the King of England.” Even still, the two
remained friends, which also kept Lady Diana around. Lady Diana and
Prince Charles spent copious amounts of time together in private and in public
over the following few years, resulting in their engagement in February 1981. At
nineteen years old, Lady Diana agreed to marry Prince Charles. In the midst of
what would have been a joyous time, heartbreak ensued. Days after their
engagement, when Prince Charles was asked if he was in love, he responded with,
“whatever ‘in love’ means.” Ouch.
In March of
1981, Diana realizes that she may not be the only apple of Charles’s eye.
Before leaving for Australia for five weeks, instead of spending his last few
moments with his fiancé, he takes a phone call with Camilla (Shand) Parker-Bowles.
“It just broke my heart,” Diana
later recalled about the phone call.
Before walking down the aisle in July 1981, Diana expresses
doubts to her sisters after finding a bracelet Charles had made for Camilla. Her
sisters say it is too late to call off the royal marriage, so she goes through
with the ceremony on July 29, 1981.
The couple gives birth to Prince William June 1982, and
Prince Harry in September 1984.
Both Charles and Diana had extramarital affairs, the
difference being that Charles’s began before he was ever married. Charles
openly began to “date” Camilla Parker-Bowles in 1984 while he was still married
to Diana. Charles famously describes his marriage with Diana by saying, “How
awful incompatibility is, and how dreadfully destructive it can be for the
players in this extraordinary drama. It has all the ingredients of a Greek
tragedy . . . I never thought it would end up like this.” Accounting Diana’s
side of the story, Vanity Fair reporter Georgina Howell said Diana was,
“faced in her mid-twenties with something she found chilling to contemplate: a
fairy-tale marriage that had cooled into an arrangement.”[3]
In Diana’s biography Diana: In Her Own Words, Andrew
Morton writes that Diana confronted Camilla Parker-Bowles in 1989. The
biography claims Diana said, “I know what’s going on between you and Charles
and I just want you to know that.”[4]
Camilla responded with, “You’ve got everything you ever wanted. You’ve got all
the men in the world fall in love with you and you’ve got two beautiful
children, what more do you want?” and Diana replies with, “I want my husband.”[5]
The two separated in December 1992, with Diana feeling “deep,
deep, profound sadness.”
A 1993 telephone call transcript was leaked, including
incredibly provocative language between Charles and Camilla, including Charles
saying that it, “would be much easier” to “live in [Camilla’s] trousers.”
Yikes.
In 1995, Diana famously opines that, “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.” Their
divorce was finalized in 1996. Diana tragically passed away just one year later
in Paris as a result of a car accident in August 1997.
Two years later,
Charles and Camilla are seen on their first official appearance as a couple.
The two marry in 2005, a wedding of which the Queen of England seemingly
begrudgingly attends.
Now, they are King and Queen (Consort).
Marriage of Three
Marriage is meant to
be between three: A man, his wife, and their God. The cord of three strands
speaks to the weaving together of three separate cords into one braided cord.
One strand is to represent the groom, one strand is to represent the bride, and
one is to represent God. The strength of the braid cannot be easily separated.
Without God at that center, the braid is practically certain to separate –
especially when a third human strand tries to weave its way in.
Divorce is a
heart-wrenching topic. Broken families are the result of broken strands, and
nobody is immune to it. The royal family has deep roots in the Church and even
still, two royals who seemingly did not have God at the center of the
marriage—as evidenced by scandals, adultery, other flirtation, lack of focus,
lack of love—found themselves heartbroken.
Ephesians
4:12 says, “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.” However, this is a
prime example that when that third strand is another human instead of Jesus
Christ, the cord is, in fact, easily broken – even if it’s royal.
[1] Mehera
Bonner, King Charles III and Queen Consort Comilla’s Scandalous Relationship
Timeline, COSMOPOLITAN
(Nov. 4, 2022), https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/celebs/a41230380/king-charles-camilla-relationship-timeline/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=arb_ga_cos_md_pmx_us_urlx_18419138764&gclid=CjwKCAiAoL6eBhA3EiwAXDom5pMpaX1pKDkXmrCXBmuqOCm07reefXb6C6xFIMODSfKR5Z037aIidhoCQGIQAvD_BwE
[hereinafter COSMOPOLITAN].
[2]
Elise Taylor, The Timeline of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s
Tumultuous, Tragic Relationship, VOGUE
(Nov. 9, 2022),
https://www.vogue.com/article/a-timeline-of-prince-charles-and-princess-dianas-tumultuous-tragic-relationship.
[3] Georgina Howell, Making the Best of It,
VANITY FAIR
(Sept. 3, 2013), https://www.vanityfair.com/style/1988/09/princess-diana-prince-charles-marriage.
[4] COSMOPOLITAN, supra
note 1.
[5] Id.
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