King Charles daring move with Camilla that shocked his aide

Stephen Barry, who once served as Prince Charles’s valet, was among the few insiders to speak about the prince’s deep affection for Camilla Parker Bowles. 

Barry’s recollections were later included in veteran journalist James Whitaker’s 1993 book Diana Vs Charles, which chronicled the troubled relationship between the then Prince of Wales and Princess Diana.

Whitaker wrote that in the runup to Charles and Diana’s wedding, Queen Elizabeth hosted a grand reception attended by guests from all over the world. Among others, Andrew Parker Bowles and his wife were also present. 

During the reception, Charles asked Camilla to dance. “Just one dance, but then she would see him again late that night,” he wrote.

“One of two people who spoke to me of Charles and Camilla’s late-night liaison was the prince’s valet, Stephen Barry,” Whitaker wrote. 

“After he left royal service he wrote two books. Instead of filling them with salacious detail, he simply painted a rosy portrait of palace life: he remained convinced of the need for royalty in Britain.”

“But when, in private, the royal wedding was mentioned, Barry would shake his head in disappointment.”

“He told friends he could not believe Charles would take such a risk, carrying on with Camilla right up to final moments of his bachelorhood.”

“He said to me, ‘Sir had always been infatuated with Camilla since they first knew each other in the early 1970s. But when he took her to bed in the very week of his wedding it seemed incredible. Certainly incredibly daring, if not incredibly stupid.’”

The author wrote that Diana had left her Coleherne Court flat and had been staying at Buckingham Palace in a suite of rooms next door to Prince Charles’s — as no one knew about it, no tongues wagged. 

But after the ball that Monday night, 27 July 1981, Diana went to sleep at Clarence House, the Queen Mother’s official London residence. It was from here she would make her carriage ride to St Paul’s Cathedral, and it was here her stunning David and Elizabeth Emanuel wedding gown awaited her.