It was 19 years ago today that King Charles and Queen Camilla finally tied the knot in what was a second marriage for them both.

Of course, Charles had previously been married to Princess Diana, with the pair divorcing just a year before her untimely death aged 36 in 1997. Camilla too had previously been married to first husband Andrew Parker Bowles and they had two children together.

When Charles and Camilla’s special day eventually came in April 2005, both Prince William and Prince Harry were there to see their dad remarry, as were Camilla’s two children, Tom and Laura.

But it seems Harry once pleaded with his father not to marry his now wife. In his controversial memoir, Spare, Harry recalls how he and William believed Camilla had played a “pivotal role in the unravelling of our parents’ marriage”, but at the same time could see how she made their father happy.

He writes that when asked, he and William promised their dad that they’d welcome Camilla into the family.
READ MORE: Meghan Markle ‘feels Kate Middleton should have backed her against every difficulty’ – expert

However, he added: “The only thing we asked in return was that he not marry her. You don’t need to remarry, we pleaded. A wedding would cause controversy. It would incite the press. It would make the whole country, the whole world, talk about Mummy, compare Mummy and Camilla, and nobody wanted that. Least of all Camilla.”

Although Charles and Camilla went public with their relationship in the early 2000s – several years after the death of Princess Diana – his children were not pictured with her in public until a year later. When Harry was initially introduced to Camilla as a teenager, their encounter was said to be ­awkward and tense. He was only 13, missing his mum terribly and was not in a position to defend her memory.

In the book, Prince William : Born to be King, a palace source tells royal biographer Penny Junor: “I think the relationship between them all is warm now but if I’m honest, it wasn’t then. I think they found it hard. To be fair to Camilla, she never tried to be mummy but she was the ‘other woman’ and she was there and taking daddy’s time.”

Meanwhile, in The Palace Papers, by royal author and ex-Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown, she writes that Harry “unnerved Camilla”. According to The Telegraph, the book quotes a courtier as saying: “When the younger boy was eventually prevailed upon to be in the presence of Mrs Parker Bowles, he unnerved her with long silences and smouldering, resentful stares.”

As time went on, Harry and William did appear to develop a warmer relationship with Camilla. During an interview to mark his 21st birthday in 2005, Harry said that he and his brother “loved her to bits” and he also publicly thanked her for making their father “very, very happy”.

However, a friend said: “Although tensions have eased between the two of them over the years, it was more for a show of unity than a close relationship. There were big problems at the start but as Harry and his brother William aged and matured, things got better and they can now co-exist as adults. They were never close with her and they still aren’t.”