Aaron Barschak, who gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party last year, says the question he is most often asked is: 'What was Camilla Parker Bowles like?' He could do worse than refer the curious to Rebecca Tyrrel's book. Born on 17 July 1947 (she is 16 months older than Prince Charles), Camilla is the daughter of an army major, Bruce Shand, and a society hostess, the Honourable Rosalind Shand (née Cubitt). Her paternal grandfather, P. Morton Shand, was an 'insatiable Lothario', who married four times. At the time of his third divorce, in 1931, the High Court described him as 'a peculiarly shameless litigant'. On her mother's side, Camilla's relatives are racier still. Her great-aunt was Violet Trefusis, the lover of Vita Sackville-West. Even better, her great-grandmother, Alice Keppel, was Edward VII's official mistress. It may be more than mere chance that the role of maîtresse-en-titre to the Prince of Wales runs in the family. Tyrrel says that, as a child, Camilla not only knew about her ancestor's liaison but regarded the story as 'talismanic', and loved to brag about it to her schoolfriends.

LRB 22 January 2004 | PDF Download