Camilla: To Be Queen, Or Not To Be? British Tabloids Argue Over Future Of The Throne

Call it a tabloid spat.

Does Camilla Parker Bowles hope to marry Prince Charles and get a royal title? One newspaper says yes. The other says “nonsense.”

Princess Diana, the third side of this highly publicized triangle, put an ocean between herself and the royal family and secluded herself in the Caribbean.

It all began when Thursday morning’s Daily Express reported unidentified friends of the 48-year-old Parker Bowles said she is determined to marry Prince Charles. And that wasn’t all: The tabloid said she also hopes to become official queen consort at Charles’ side when he becomes king.

Then came the late editions of the Daily Mail: “fanciful nonsense,” according to unidentified members of Parker Bowles’ family and unidentified aides to Prince Charles.

“The idea that she should have some kind of official role in his life is the product of a very fertile imagination,” according to one anonymous royal source quoted by the Daily Mail.

And according to one quoted friend - also unidentified - “She is not about to start making demands of Charles. That is not her way.”

Charles already has said he does not intend to remarry after a divorce. His statement Dec. 21 appeared aimed at averting an avalanche of speculation about Parker Bowles after Queen Elizabeth II last week urged Charles and Diana to divorce. Charles has agreed, but Diana has not given her answer.

In a television interview in June 1994, Charles acknowledged being unfaithful after his marriage to Diana had broken down. He did not name the “other woman.”

But interviewer Jonathan Dimbleby, Charles’ biographer, later identified her as Parker Bowles, the former Camilla Shand, a close friend of the prince’s since 1972.

She and Charles had dated when he was 23 and just starting a naval career. Neither had made a commitment to the other, Dimbleby says. When the prince was away on navy service, she accepted Andrew Parker Bowles’ proposal.

On Nov. 20, Diana gave her own television interview in which she blamed Camilla Parker Bowles, in part, for the breakdown of her marriage. But she acknowledged she had had an extramarital affair.

Diana also said she does not want a divorce, said she would not “go quietly” and suggested Charles might not be suited to the throne.

Last week, Diana decided against a chilly holiday with the in-laws at Sandringham royal estate in eastern England. The palace said she had changed her mind about accompanying her two sons there for the holiday.

Princes William, 13, and Harry, 11, spent Christmas with their father and cousins, and Diana stayed at home in Kensington Palace.

On Wednesday, accompanied by a woman identified as her personal assistant Victoria Mendham, Diana was spotted arriving at Antigua in the Caribbean. Journalists trying to track her down focused on Antigua and neighboring Barbuda.

But Antiguan security forces barred sea and road routes to an expensive resort on the island of Barbuda where the princess was rumored to have gone.

Police reinforcements flown in from Antigua bolstered Barbuda’s team of six policemen and turned reporters away from the 250-acre K Club resort of cottages and villas.