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You forgot to mention Princess Margaret and her own romantic entanglement, where she was in love with, and received a proposal of marriage from, a man who was divorced. There was an entire scandal over this, with public opinion (or at least, public opinion as the press expressed it) divided; most disapproved, but some said 'why not?' The big sticking point was the abdication crisis of her uncle, which is how her father came to the throne,and which was still exerting a lot of influence over political considerations,
Divorce was still faintly scandalous even up to the 60s. Margaret eventually had to publicly announce that she was breaking it off with her boyfriend:
Now, with regard to Camilla, it's not so much the Church of England (which has always been lagging behind society as customs change and it tries to hold the line on doctrine, while giving in on social changes due to 'pastoral sympathies'). Because it's a state church, the government can have the final say in what doctrines it does and does not get to legally enforce.
The kerfuffle around Camilla ad what title she would get was not about the Church of England disapproving of divorce; it was due to the Diana Factor. She was seen as the home-wrecker who had destroyed the fairy-tale marriage. She was The Other Woman, and Diana up to the divorce made hay of that: the (in)famous "three of us in this marriage" interview with Martin Bashir. All of this was very publicly played out in the media, with leaks, phone taps and the like being tabloid fodder.
And then Diana's death in that car crash put the final kibosh on matters. Had she lived on for years, while the temperature cooled about the marriage and divorce and all the rest of it, then things would have been easier. But at the height of the hysteria over the Princess of Hearts, even the Queen was coming under pressure for not being sufficiently supportive of her. So Camilla had to be shoved into the background, and any speculation about Charles as King has to downplay that Camilla would be Queen, not Diana. You can even see that in how she was referred to as the Duchess of Cornwall, not Princess of Wales, even after Diana's death. In fact, to cool down the excessive public heat about Diana being "denied" her rightful title, and the perception that the public would never ever accept Camilla as queen instead of Diana, the issued an announcement when Charles and Camilla got married that she wouldn't be queen, she would be princess consort:
A lot of tact and hard work went into rehabilitating her image, including work by the royals. And now it has been years since Diana died, Camilla was step-by-step integrated into the Royal Family, she gets on well with her stepsons, and now she will be Queen Consort, her proper title. She is not Queen in her own right as a reigning monarch, and she is not mother of the heir to the throne, so she is Queen by virtue of being married to the King. For the other side, see how Queen Elizabeth's husband was the Duke of Edinburgh (not King Consort) and the husband of Queen Victoria was Prince Consort (not King Consort, though she wished to create that title for him, but it was strongly resisted by the politicians).
The bit about "the queen's wishes" may seem like the usual boilerplate, but it is absolutely essential to smooth the transfer of power and for Camilla to use the title of Queen:
If you are a Loyal Subject, you can't disregard the intentions (politely phrased as a wish) of the queen as to what she wants done.
I hadn't realized the impact of Diana's popularity! That makes a lot of sense, silly as it seems to me.
That's adorable! I didn't know she had wanted to call him king consort. Royal marriages do run the gamut from the sordid to the sweet.
Victoria and Albert really do seem to have been a love match, she was besotted with him. But since the title of "king" generally meant "ruler" and not "husband of queen", there was historically a lot of reluctance to give this title to someone who married the female monarch, particularly in the days when the husband ruled the wife. They didn't want to hand over rule of the country to a foreign prince (that was a big part of the problem for Elizabeth I - how could she marry a foreign prince who wouldn't demand to be at least co-ruler, and if she married a commoner who was her subject, that wouldn't do either). It was also part of the travails of Mary, Queen of Scots; her second husband eventually grew impatient with just being a consort and demanded to be co-ruler (and he eventually ended up murdered for his troubles):
I'm old enough to remember the hysteria around Diana's death and funeral, and there really were some elements whipping up anti-royal sentiment and even criticising the queen for not being publicly emotional enough in her grief. Saying that Camilla (the wicked Other Woman who had made Diana's marriage suffer) would be Queen and not Diana would really have lit a fire. So to manage public sentiment, the statements about "Duchess of Cornwall not Princess of Wales" and "Princess Consort not Queen" were issued.
Yes, I see avoiding the implication that he ruled jure uxoris. That said, what would have been the implications if he had become co-ruler? It's hard for me to see how Britain would have been worse off for giving Albert or Philip more influence.
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