When Prince Harry accused Camilla Parker Bowles of leaking stories to the press in a ‘campaign for marriage’ to King Charles, he reignited a fire under the evil mistress-turned-stepmother narrative that had somewhat been dissipating in recent years thanks to good press and her enduring relationship with the King. Trending on Google last night with breakout search for ‘What did Harry say about Camilla?’, this morning the hashtags #CamillaParkerBowlesIsABully and #CamillaConsortsWithAbusers are going viral.
In his memoir Spare, the duke accused Camilla of giving ‘pinpoint accurate details’ to the press about the first time she met Prince William in an effort to rehabilitate her image after being framed as the villain who broke up Charles and Diana.
‘None [of the details] had come from Willy, of course. They could only have been leaked by the one other person present,' Harry wrote, insinuating Camilla or a member of her team had done the work. He later says she ‘sacrificed me on her personal PR alter’, repeating the claims to CNN’s Anderson Cooper today in an interview which will be available on ITVX.
‘If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that’s what you're gonna do,’ Harry explained when quizzed about his accusations against Camilla.
He was asked about it too in last night’s ITV interview with Tom Bradby, questioned about why he asked his father not to marry Camilla (another admission from the book) and whether he was truly happy for his father now. ‘One hundred percent,’ he said I response. But later, in a conversation about Jeremy Clarkson’s attack on Meghan, Harry appeared to dig at Camilla once more.
‘The Jeremy Clarkson article… so not only what he said was horrific and is hurtful and cruel towards my wife, but it also encourages other people around the UK and around the world – men particularly – to go and think that it’s acceptable to treat women that way,’ Harry said. ‘And to use my stepmother’s words recently as well, there is a global pandemic of violence against women.’
Camilla is a known friend to Clarkson, who attended her annual Christmas lunch last year just two days before Clarkson’s article attacking Meghan came out. Harry’s reference then was considered a sly dig by viewers who think they have put two and two together. Camilla had also invited Piers Morgan to the lunch, something fans of Harry and Meghan take issue with given his vile obsession with publicly critiquing the duchess.
These are perhaps the reasons many see Harry’s outspokenness about Camilla as valid. She appears to consort with the very people who publicly attack her stepson's wife, and while Camilla herself denies leaking the story about her first meeting with William in 1998, royal sources told The Telegraph that her private secretary Amanda MacManus was found to have leaked it. According to them, Camilla had told Amanda intimate details of the meeting who had in turn told her husband, a media executive, who then told a former colleague at a newspaper. After the news leaked, Camilla made the unusual decision to put out a public statement announcing Amanda’s resignation.
‘It is a matter of great regret to me that chance remarks of mine led to the disclosure in the press of the private meeting between Mrs Parker Bowles and Prince William,’ Amanda said at the time. ‘I am so very sorry for the distress this has caused. Above all, my shame is that I have failed those who demand loyalty and trust, particularly my remarkable employer Mrs Parker Bowles.’
After resigning, Amanda was later reinstated, going on to work as Camilla’s private secretary until last year. One must admit that the series of events in which this news was leaked does closely resemble the explanation Harry gives for how royal family members manipulate the press – while it might not be the royal in question who picks up the phone, they have teams around them who can act in their principles best interest.
That’s why many are on Harry’s side when it comes to critiquing Camilla, noting that he doesn’t necessarily hone in on her - equally critiquing William in his book and similarly implying that William and Kate’s team have leaked stories to protect their reputations, to the detriment of Meghan and Harry. But others worry about this pinpointing on Camilla, questioning whether it goes against the very sexist campaign against women in the media that he claims to despise after it swallowed his own wife.
Is it perhaps sexist that Camilla is taking the brunt of the backlash on the story leaks? The reaction around her demise online certainly seems more vitriolic. When Harry named Camilla on ITV, the immediate social media response was almost gleeful, as though those who have sat silently on their hatred for the Queen Consort finally had an excuse to share their utmost disdain for her.
It’s the ‘evil stepmother’ narrative some women are particularly taking issue with, with Harry’s words that Camilla embarked on a ‘campaign for marriage’ sitting uncomfortable. Essentially, he’s repeating the tired stereotype that women somehow scheme their way into powerful positions in men’s lives (a narrative his own wife continues to fall foul to by misogynists online).
One must then ask, is it fair for Harry to accuse Camilla of a ‘campaign for marriage’, knowing the sexist vitriol she may face as people enjoy putting her back into the evil mistress box that she had only recently escaped? Or is it perhaps not his responsibility to burden that given it’s a relationship he’s bound to feel conflicted about? We have to allow Camilla a sense of agency after all, no matter her gender she is responsible for her own actions.
What’s obvious is that the misogynistic comments Camilla is now fielding online, whether one considers them to be caused by Harry’s comments or not, are far from acceptable and he too would condemn any trolling of his stepmother. We must be able to critique a person’s actions or life choices, be them bad choices made for love or gross friendships, without descending into gendered insults and sexist tropes. Whether you dislike the Queen Consort or not, repeating misogynistic discourse is no way to demand accountability, and it certainly won’t inspire change.