How Queen Camilla will help King Charles define the style of his reign

The Queen’s character may well be the key to Charles reordering and modernising the monarchy, writes Sean O’Grady

The one outstanding feature of King Charles and Queen Camilla is that they are simply in love (Hugo Burnand/Buckinham Palace/Getty)

If we want to know exactly what kind of a relationship Charles and Camilla have, and what kind of a Consort she will prove to be, then we have to look no further than a revisit of the less salacious parts of the famous “Camillagate” tapes.

This was a private and intimate phone conversation between the pair that took place in 1989, apparently recorded illicitly by a radio ham (or the security services) and leaked to the Daily Mirror, which published a transcript in 1993. At the time of the conversation, they were both married, and the public exposure of their exchanges marked a low point for the pair and for the monarchy.

Sniggered at by the entire nation, what seems more significant now – nearly 30 years later – is the plain, uncomplicated, compelling romantic love that existed between them. In many ways the Camillagate tapes are the key to understanding what went wrong for them both during those years, and what has gone right in more recent times.