Why Camilla’s ‘naughty’ ex-husband is attending the coronation

Andrew Parker Bowles was married to Camilla for 22 years

Camilla’s ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles will be present at Westminster Abbey for hers and King Charles III’s coronation ceremony next month.

The Queen Consort was married to Parker Bowles for 22 years before they divorced in 1995. The following year, he married Rosemary Pitman who died from cancer in 2010.

Meanwhile, Camilla married the then-Prince of Wales in 2005.

On Saturday (22 April), The Sunday Times reported that Parker Bowles, 83, will attend the swearing-in ceremony of his ex-wife, as the pair remain “joined at the hip”.

A friend of Parker Bowles told the publication: “He arranges so much for her. They have lunch together the whole time. He’s right in there. He was always, and still is, Camilla’s co-conspirator.”

One of Camilla’s Queen Companions, the Marchioness of Lansdowne said everyone “loves Andrew” and that he’s a “real charmer but he’s always terribly misbehaving”.

She added: “Through adversity they’ve kept a really good family ethic. It helps with their children and grandchildren.”

Their son, the restaurant critic Tom Parker Bowles, is Charles’ godson. Their daughter Laura Lopes, 45, is a gallerist, and the former couple have five grandchildren.

(Owen Humphreys/PA) (PA Wire)

Tom’s son Freddy, and Laura’s twins, Gus and Louis, all 13, will be Camilla’s pages at the coronation, carrying the train of her robes.

Parker Bowles was unfaithful to Camilla during their marriage, and their friends describe the retired army officer as “a bit of a rogue” and “very naughty”.

He remains close, however, with several members of the royal family, including Princess Anne with whom he had a brief romance.

Parker Bowles has attended both of Charles’ weddings, including to Princess Diana in July 1981 when he accompanied the then-Prince and Princess of Wales’s carriages on horseback after the ceremony.

Parker Bowles was also present at Charles and Camilla’s wedding in 2005, attending the ceremony with Pitman.

Finally, Parker Bowles served as a page to Lord Simonds, then the Lord High Chancellor, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II 70 years ago.

News that Camilla’s former husband will attend the King’s coronation on 6 May comes two days after Sarah Ferguson confirmed she wasn’t invited to the celebration.

Ferguson and Prince Andrew, King Charles’ disgraced brother, have been divorced since 1996.

During an appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Thursday (20 April), the 63-year-old author said: “It’s a state occasion and being divorced, I don’t think you can have it both ways.

“I am divorced, and I’m really loving being divorced to my ex-husband, not from my ex-husband, it’s quite a differentiate.”