How Camilla finally won over HEARTS
According to The Crown, the Duchess of Cornwall delivered arguably one of the best chat-up lines in history when she first met Prince Charles, 50 years ago.
It was in 1971 that the star-crossed lovers are thought to have initially clapped eyes on each other during a polo match on Smith’s Lawn in Windsor Great Park. After introducing herself as Camilla Shand, the then 24-year-old allegedly said to the future king: “You know, sir, my great-grandmother was the mistress of your greatgreat-grandfather, so, how about it?”
Charles, who was 23, was reportedly left speechless.
But it didn’t quite happen like that. While they did frequently meet on the fringes of polo matches in the early 1970s, as their biographer Gyles Brandreth discovered, they were actually first introduced by Lucia Santa Cruz, the glamorous daughter of the former Chilean ambassador. Regardless of what Camilla may or may not have said, as Gyles wrote in his 2005 book Charles & Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair, “The attraction between Charles and Camilla was immediate and mutual, and passionate.”
Half a century on, having softened her look and got on with the job uncomplainingly, the 74-year-old duchess has slowly won over the
