Princess Diana And Camilla Parker Bowles Are Related After All

Royal family fans might forever view Princess Diana and Camilla Parker Bowles as rivals in love after Prince Charles cheated the former with the latter. However, the two female royals share another thing aside from being in love with the same man — a bloodline. The two women in Prince Charles’ life are actually distant relatives.

Being relatives is quite common within the royal family’s circle. The reason for this is the family’s preference to marry within a small group of lineages in an effort to preserve power within the group or prevent its dilution. Seen in this light, it is easy to understand why royals were discouraged from marrying commoners in the past.

Princess Diana and Camilla are descendants of Charles II, according to Express. Charles II is the King of England, Scotland and Ireland, whose reign spanned from May 29, 1660, until February 6, 1685.

Both royals are descendants of Charles Lennox, who was the 1st Duke of Richmond, who lived from 1672 until 1723 and was an illegitimate son of Charles II. While Charles II did not have any legitimate children, the monarch acknowledged seven mistresses, which include Lennox’s mother, Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth.

This makes Princess Diana and Camilla Parker Bowles distantly related. To be exact, the Princess of Wales is the Duchess of Cornwall’s 7th cousin, according to the FamousKin site.

While the public will never forget Princess Diana’s anger and hurt after finding out Prince Charles with Camilla, the two female royals were actually close friends before the drama started. According to biographer Penny Junor, both used to enjoy each other’s company.

When they started dating in 1980, Charles and Diana were, in fact, frequent visitors in Camilla and her then-husband Andrew Parker Bowles’ home. Diana would even help Camilla take care of her little children, Tom and Laura.

Penny Junor said that Diana was shocked when Camilla’s photo fell out of Prince Charles’ diary. The couple was on their honeymoon at that time on board the Royal Yacht Britannia.

Despite marrying Diana, Charles was still in love with Camilla, which eventually caused their marriage to fall apart until the mess was too big to cover up. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Diana finally revealed as the cause of their troubles in that 1995 interview with Martin Bashir.