Who Will Be Queen After Elizabeth Dies? How Prince Charles' Wife Camilla Could Go From Mistress To Majesty

At 90-years-old, Queen Elizabeth II has officially entered her twilight: she's stepped down as patron from 20 charities "to lighten her work load," and is currently battling the 13th day of a "heavy cold" that forced the monarch to skip out on annual royal holiday celebrations. All this has brought to light the inevitable question of who replaces the queen, as her 68-year-old son Prince Charles is set to become the first king since 1952.

Whether Charles' wife Camilla Parker Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II, will be given the ceremonial title when her husband assumes the throne, has remained unclear. Though the public’s perception of Prince Charles’ second wife has softened in recent years, Bowles has had a complicated relationship with the British people and royal family, to say the least. A former mistress to Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall’s royal affair with the prince caused the ultimate dissolve of his marriage to Princess Diana, one of the most popular members of the royal family in history.

The queen urged Diana to divorce Charles in 1996, just one year before she was killed in a car crash that made international news. The accident made “the people’s princess” a worldwide martyr, and Camilla an even more disliked public figure.

A ComRes poll conducted last year revealed the majority of the British population (at least 55 percent) don’t support the Duchess of Cornwall becoming the queen alongside Charles as king. When it comes to ultimately deciding who becomes the next queen, however, the public’s opinion isn’t a deciding factor: the decision would be left entirely to Charles, who has reportedly expressed hopes to bestow the title to his wife. Meanwhile, it’s been reported Camilla does not have any long-term goal of assuming the throne, as tabloid magazines purported during the beginning of her marriage to Charles. Neither member of the royal family has publicly indicated their stance on whether the Duchess of Cornwall should become the next queen.

Being that there is no constitutional provision that a queen be titled alongside the king, Charles could simply assume the throne after Queen Elizabeth II either abdicates or passes away as the reigning monarch. However, if a Queen Camilla is in the cards, it would be the greatest royal ascent to power in modern British history: from mistress to her majesty.