Ten years ago she was the most reviled woman in Britain.
Such was the emotional power of Prince Charles’s wronged wife Diana that it was alleged bread rolls were hurled at his hated mistress Camilla in the walkways of Sainsbury’s by furious Diana worshippers.
It all seems a long time ago now and it’s hard to imagine the furore caused by the Prince taking a mistress, something of a custom dating back several centuries after all.
Recently it has been revealed that Diana wept during the rehearsal for her marriage and now it emerges that Camilla was so worried about her public reception that she too had to be gently cajoled out of bed on that morning in 2005 and into the Guildhall for the civil ceremony.
Fortunately she had no cause to be alarmed after all. Apart from the odd protestor there was nothing but the usual crowds of well-wishers demonstrating once again that the power of royalty transcends almost all other emotions.
My own recollection is that the majority of the British public were bored with the whole saga and simply glad that a middle-aged couple who had endured so much opprobium, but who obviously adored one another, should be allowed to tie the knot with the minimum of fuss.
There was an amusingly contemptuous remark from a commentator that the Prince had effectively “got married in the local town hall” – given his admitted adultery there was no church service – but that was about it. Diana’s power had inevitably faded and it seemed the public sensed that Charles, in an odd echo of his Uncle David and Wallis Simpson, that he could never be truly happy without Camilla at his side. Even the arguments about whether she could ever become Queen one day have disappeared thanks to her unobtrusive style. She so obviously has little interest in titles that a clamour may have to be got up for her to accept it when the time comes.
