She would be sitting at the table, listening to him behave badly, and all she would have to do is look at him and the whole atmosphere would change … It did make him behave a little bit better, because when she wasn’t there, boy, could he kick off!’” ‘What I noticed early on was the effect she had on the room. ‘It was quite hard on her, people pointing and whispering, but she coped really, really well,’ said one person close to her. Junor continued: “Next, Camilla started turning up unannounced at public engagements, dinners and events where the media was present. But that was Mark – he was always pushing things on … he wanted to achieve the goal of getting them married.”Ĭharles and Camilla leaving the Ritz hotel in London in 1999. And, thanks to Bolland’s gambit, public opinion started turning round. As one of them says: the sky didn’t fall in. In her biography of Camilla, Penny Junor said: “Many people in the Prince’s office thought it was too early for them to be seen together. He engineered for the couple to be photographed coming out of a party at the Ritz hotel in London in 1999. Described in Valentine Low’s book Courtiers as “clever, charming, manipulative” and “one of the most colourful and interesting players in the royal drama of the last 30 years”, Bolland performed his task skilfully. But Diana’s death weeks later made it impossible for the couple to be seen together publicly.Ĭharles handed responsibility for getting “Operation PB”, as aides called it, back on track to his deputy private secretary, Mark Bolland. It was a very public statement of his intentions.

The first tentative steps had included a 50th birthday party for Camilla at Highgrove, with guests including Camilla’s ex-husband. She was moving on with her own life, while Charles’s campaign for a second marriage was well under way. “By the time of her death Diana had reached a rapprochement with Camilla,” said Lacey.

She would be king