What was the humiliating ‘social incident’ that finally shamed Prince Charles into getting down on his knees and proposing to Camilla?

The debate over the appropriateness of a possible marriage between Charles and Camilla raged back and forth throughout 2004.

Could a future head of the Church of England marry a divorcee – something that had caused so much trouble for the royal family in the 1930s?

Could a future king who had admitted adultery be allowed a second marriage by the Church?

According to author Tina Brown, spiritual opinion began to shift in favor of the speculated marriage in November.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, stated that this was the ‘natural thing’.

Yet, Brown writes, it seems to have been an “irritating social incident” rather than a canonical opinion that ultimately led Charles to propose.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana with their bridesmaids and page boys along with members of the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on their wedding day in July 1981

Edward van Cutsem’s wedding to Lady Tamara Grovesnor was the society wedding of the year. But godfather Prince Charles was missing on the big day

The reason was the wedding between Edward Van Cutsem, son of family friends, and the daughter of the Duke of Westminster in Chester Cathedral.

Edward, a godson of Charles, had been a page boy at his marriage to Diana.

It was named association wedding of the year. with guests such as Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, Charles and Camilla and William and Harry.

“Charles and Camilla were informed of the seating arrangements the weekend before the wedding,” Brown writes in her best-selling book The Palace Papers.

‘The arrangements showed that Mrs Parker Bowles was relegated to the social margins of the event.’

Camilla, she writes, had expected to sit directly behind Charles, who would be at the front with the queen and Philip.

‘But no, that ‘Dutch Cow’ as Camilla reportedly called it [mother of the groom] Emilie Van Cutsem had locked her on the other side of the cathedral, with the bride’s friends in the back, and told her she could not enter or leave through the main entrance.’

A courtier told the Daily Mail at the time that this had ‘sent Camilla over the edge’.

Ms Van Cutsem claimed she was adhering to protocol and refused to give Camilla an upgrade – and Camilla, Brown writes, ‘refused to be understanding’.

“She wouldn’t be humiliated in front of all of Charles’s snotty inner circle and, more importantly, the royal family.

‘The prince had to choose between attending the wedding without her or rejecting his best friends and his godson.

“It was Camilla’s line in the sand.”

Fortunately, a solution presented itself. On the day of the wedding, Charles had to visit Warminster barracks in Wiltshire to meet the families of Black Watch soldiers. Three members of the regiment had been killed in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

At this point Camilla’s 87-year-old father, Major Bruce Shand, comes into the story, according to royal biographer Penny Junor.

Writing in The Duchess: The Untold Story, says Junor

‘Although he loved the prince very much, he felt he was weak and worried about how vulnerable he had made Camilla by allowing her to live in limbo.

Among the guests were the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip

Prince William and Prince Harry, close friends of the Van Custem children, served as ushers at Chester Cathedral

Newlyweds Ewdard van Cutsem and Lady Tamara Grosvenor left their wedding on November 6, 2004

Camilla shows off her engagement ring as she and Prince Charles arrive for a party at Windsor Castle after announcing their engagement on February 10, 2005.

Camilla Parker Bowles’ children, Tom and Laura Parker Bowles, stand with her father, Major Bruce Shand, after Prince Charles and Camilla’s civil wedding ceremony in April 2005

“He took the prince aside and said, ‘I want to meet my maker knowing that my daughter is all right.’

Charles listened and acknowledged what he had to say. It was, he admitted, a nonsensical and insulting position for Camilla, and one that others have also suggested she found deeply disturbing.

After all, without marriage she had no status – and Charles knew he had to make things right.

He asked Camilla to marry him that new year on bent knee.