Will Camilla Be Queen? Prince Charles Will Give Wife Title Despite Adultery Controversy With Princess Diana: Report

Prince Charles will defy wide scale opposition in Britain and make his wife Camilla Parker Bowles queen when he takes over as King from Queen Elizabeth II, according to a Buckingham Palace source.

While the husband of a queen, such as the current royal spouse Prince Phillip, does not generally take the title of king, every wife of a king in British history has been given the title “Queen Consort,” shortened to “queen.”

However, due to the controversy surrounding their relationship and marriage, it was announced at the time of their wedding that Camilla, currently known as the Duchess of Cornwall, would instead be known as “Princess.” Indeed, his website has continued to state the intention that Camilla will use the title HRH The Princess Consort.

But a source told the Daily Beast Saturday that Prince Charles intended to alter that plan as soon as he ascends to the throne.

“They have it all worked out,” the source, who is close to a number of senior royals, said. “When Charles goes before the Accession Council he will tell them his choice of regal name, and then he will authoritatively make it clear that his wife is to be known as Queen Camilla.”

Charles, who is likely to take the title Charles III, was said to believe that the disordered mood in the country following the death of Queen Elizabeth II would ensure that the move does not face a serious challenge.

But the plan, which has been strongly denied by a source close to Prince Charles, would likely face significant opposition. Camilla has been a controversial figure since Charles admitted in a 1994 interview that he had been unfaithful during his marriage to Princess Diana. A year later, Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, said in an interview of her own when asked whether Camilla was a factor in the breakdown of the marriage that “there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a little bit crowded.”

The situation was further complicated by the fact that Camilla herself was married until divorcing in 1995. It was only after the Church of England altered its stance on the subject in 2002 that Charles and Camilla were allowed to marry, although they did it in a civil ceremony.

While the image and Charles and Camilla has been repaired to some degree since the aftermath of the divorce and death of Diana, significant opposition remained. Forty-six percent of Britons had an unfavorable opinion of Camilla, according to a 2015 Gallup poll. And 57 percent of Britons opposed the 69-year-old becoming Queen of England someday.

Yet Charles appeared to be unperturbed.

“Charles will push for this,” Penny Juror, a royal biographer who has already written a book on Prince Charles and is now working on one on Camilla, told the Daily Beast. “He is so fiercely proud of her and I think would see anything less than the title of Queen as being a slight. And he has never been good at taking advice from people that disagree with him.”