Charles and Camilla...

The late Diana, Princess of Wales, famously remarked--she did everything famously--that there were three people in her marriage to Prince Charles, "so it was a bit crowded."
Well, that third person's going to find her marriage to Prince Charles a tad claustrophobic too, at times.
Not from anything amiss in Charles' heart, that's for sure. Camilla has been his one true love since they met in 1970. His marriage to Lady Diana Spencer didn't change that one whit, and all three of them knew it. Camilla's wedding present to Charles in 1981 was a pair of cufflinks, with entwined C's engraved, for Charles and Camilla. I'm sure Diana found that quite charming.
I started out writing this without any intention of mentioning Diana at all, and I did it right away in spite of myself. She had that power in life and still has it. You'd like to, out of goodwill for the royal newlyweds, dismiss the late ex-wife of the groom as entirely irrelevant to this wedding, this marriage, but it's hard. Her spectre flitted just out of sight amongst all Charles' other old girlfriends attending the church service today. Not to mention the very real bulk of Andrew Parker-Bowles. Do the British upper crust have any feelings at all, I wonder. I just can't imagine exchanging vows with my wife in the presence of a bunch of old loves, nor can I imagine attending the weddings of women I'd had rather public fallings-out with.
Diana faced the impossible: a rivalry with a woman who had throughly staked her claim to her husband's heart long before and wouldn't even pretend to relinquish it. Camilla won that little skirmish, but she's got a ways to go before she wins the war, because Diana mobilized an army who won't let a little thing like death in Paris diminish their ardor for their Princess. If anything, the cult of Diana has grown, since...and Camilla would find it every bit as difficult to compete with an idealized ghost, if she cared one jot for what the public thinks. Luckily--or maybe not--she doesn't.
In recent weeks, Charles has carefully selected the title of Duchess of Cornwall and rank of Princess Consort for Camilla. All well and good until such day as Charles assumes the throne. It'd take an Act of Parliament to unqueen Camilla then, and let there be no doubt: that won't happen.

For those of you sitting in judgment of this wedding, ask yourself this: has Prince William objected in any way to it? Or Prince Harry? If they don't have a problem with their father finding official happiness at long last, maybe you shouldn't, either.

I'll tell you what I'm tired of: all the Camilla jokes. They're in very poor taste, every last one of them. It's disturbing in this era when so much is off limits, but for some reason it seems to be perfectly okay to trash somebody on the basis of their appearance. Horse-face, they call her. Rottweiler, they call her. And they wonder how Charles could forsake Diana for...that.
I'll tell you how that works: shared interests and shared history. They trump skin-deep beauty every time.
Camilla has something else going for her that Diana never did: an understanding and deep appreciation for the protocols and peculiarities of British royalty. She'll toe the line and she'll do it with a smile on her face. Her Majesty may object to the manner in which her son finally got his way, but at least Camilla won't pose the threat of humiliation to the Royal Family every time she opens her mouth. There probably won't be any tell-all books in this marriage's future: it'll be staid and predictable and Charles will be happier than a pig in a blanket.