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Prince William Reportedly Approves of Camilla’s Future Role as Queen Consort

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Over the weekend, Queen Elizabeth observed the 70th anniversary of the accession to the throne with a show of affection for her son, Prince Charles, and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, by announcing she hopes Camilla will take the title of queen consort when Charles becomes king. According to the Daily Mail, Prince William, the next heir, was not a part of the decision-making process but he has given his support for Camilla to take on the title of Queen Consort upon his father’s coronation. “The duke is supportive,” one source told the tabloid.

The Mail also spoke to an insider who said that the support reflects the current strength of his relationship with Prince Charles. “His relationship with the Prince of Wales is better than it ever has been,” the source said. “He is not particularly close to his stepmother but they get on perfectly well and are quite the blended family now. He also respects his grandmother and her judgment more than anything in the world. If it is right for her, then it will be right for him.”

Sources told the Mail that William and Camilla had a testy relationship for a few years, which lasted even after Charles and Camilla were married in 2005. “None of this can have been easy for him,” one insider added. “There were huge family rows in the early stages of Charles and Camilla’s marriage as everyone found their feet. William didn’t have the best relationship with his father back then. But he sees that Camilla had made his father happy and it is something he has come to terms with.”

According to friends who spoke to the Mail, this does not mean that William plans to stop championing the legacy of his mother, Princess Diana. In the years since Diana’s 1997 death, William has worked with his brother, Prince Harry, on a variety of causes that support her memory, and in July 2021, they reunited to dedicate a statue on the Kensington Palace grounds, despite the issues in their own relationship.

In his 2020 book, Battle of Brothers, royal expert Robert Lacey reported that William and Charles would get into shouting matches in the years after the 2005 wedding and that Camilla herself once said that William “has a temper.”

But relations between the father and son have improved markedly since then. In 2020, a source close to William told Vanity Fair that he sees eye-to-eye with his father now. “Since getting married and becoming a father I think William and his father are very much on the same page,” the source said. “There’s a sense of duty that runs through them both and unites them and as far as their relationship is concerned, they’ve crossed a bridge.”

Originally published in Vanityfair.com

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