Meet the family: kings, queens and pack of barons
Camilla’s family tree connects her to at least seven dukes, six Marquis, 15 counts, seven viscounts and eight barons.
It also comes directly from Jeanne, Queen of Navarre (1528-72), King Henry IV of France (1533-1610), King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway (1534-88), Queen Mary of Scots (1542-87), King James VI of Scotland and I of England (1566-1625) and King Charles II (1630-85).
She was also associated with the Queen through their common ancestor John Lyon, 8th Lord Glamis (1544-78), and to Princess Diana through William, 2nd Earl of Albemarle (1702-54).
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, pictured in 2013.
Camilla also came directly from King Henry IV of France (1533-1610), King of Denmark and Norway Frederick II (1534-88), Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-87), etc.
Yes, Prime Minister: they are all related to the Duchess
Camilla counts three British prime ministers among her relatives.
First, George Canning, the prime minister with the shortest internship, who lasted just 119 days in Downing Street before his sudden death from pneumonia at the age of 57 in 1827.
The second, Alec Douglas-Home, also had a brief career at Number 10 – just 363 days, ending in 1964.
Henry, Lord Palmerston was twice prime minister, holding government posts almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865.
Camilla was also linked to Sir Alan McNabb, who was Prime Minister of Canada from 1854 to 1856.
Pictured: George Canning, the prime minister with the shortest internship, who lasted just 119 days in Downing Street before his sudden death from pneumonia at the age of 57 in 1827
Henry, Lord Palmerston (pictured) was twice prime minister, holding government posts almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865
Bluebloods, strange man, war hero… and a womaniser
One of the attributes that has appealed Camilla to the nation over the years is her common touch – a joke with the audience, happy to procrastinate, ready to take a joke.
Perhaps this is because among her blue-blooded ancestors there is a central core of the working class.
Her father’s mother, Margot Tippett, was the daughter of a strange man – and granddaughter of London butler Henry Harrington, who polished silver under the stairs.
Harrington was considered polite and effective and rose to a gentleman in the Belgravia family of a very decorated army general, Sir Richard England.
Harrington and his wife had 12 children who grew up to become clerks and salesmen, garage mechanics and vendors. One was a working violinist.
Pictured: Camilla’s grandfather Philip Morton. His father, who received an education at Ethan and Cambridge, was engaged to Irish writer Constance Lloyd, who dumped him for Oscar Wilde
Kralica on the butt
Camilla is Madonna’s 10th cousin on a French-Canadian line that includes the singer’s eight-time grandfather and grandmother Zachary Cloutier.
Madonna on stage during the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards
Harrington’s granddaughter Margot started working as a fashion designer, but with the outbreak of The First World War she retrained as a secretary.
In her work, she met with journalist Philip Morton Shand, who worked in the defense ministry. His father, who had an education at Eton and Cambridge, was engaged to Irish writer Constance Lloyd, who dumped him for Oscar Wilde.
Shand Snr married Augusta, heiress to shipping, and their son Morton was educated at Eton, Cambridge, and then at the Sorbonne in France.
He and Margot married in 1916 and nine months later she gave birth to a son, Bruce Middleton Hope Shand – Camilla’s father. Morton went to serve in the Royal Field Artillery – and that was actually the end of the marriage.
Margot stayed close to Morton’s parents, and they largely raised her son.
By now, she had abandoned her working-class background and remarried. Her second husband was golf course designer Charles Tippett.
For a while, Camilla’s little father spent time with his mother and stepfather in the US. Morton, an incorrigible womaniser, is married three times as many.
In 1926, he was expelled from France after a divorce from his third wife, daughter of the velvet producers in Lyon.
The divorce judge told him, “Turn your attention to another country!” soon after, he was sued for bankruptcy and in another divorce hearing was convicted by the judge, who said that “a little healthy publicity can limit your behavior.”
Margot was no more of a mother than Morton was a father, and their son soon returned to England with his grandparents before being transferred to the state school of rugby.
Bruce Shand grew up to admire everyone who knew him, and during World War II he won the Military Cross twice before being interned in a prisoner of war camp.
Shand Snr married Augusta (pictured), heiress to shipping, and their son Morton was educated at Eton, Cambridge and then at the Sorbonne in France
After his release, he married Rosalind Cubitt. It has long been said that Rosalind’s mother, Sonia, could be the daughter of Edward VII and Alice Keppel, Camilla’s great-grandmother.
In fact, Camilla is said to have introduced herself to Prince Charles, saying: “My great-grandmother and your great-great-grandfather were lovers – how about that?”
Keppel was the king’s mistress and over the paternity of Keppel’s second daughter Sonia, Camilla’s grandmother, hangs a question mark. If Sonia is indeed the daughter of Edward VII, it means Camilla is a second cousin, once removed by Prince Charles.
Break their heads! Camilla’s unfortunate relatives
An alarming number of Camilla’s ancestors died of violent death.
Lord Darkley – married to Mary, Queen of Scots and himself a contender for the English throne – was assassinated at the age of just 20, in February 1567.
Darnley was blown up with several barrels of gunpowder at a house in Edinburgh where he was staying while apparently struggling with syphilis.
His naked body was found strangled in a nearby orchard, along with that of his valeter.
Lord Darkley – married to Mary queen of Scots and himself a contender for the English throne – was assassinated at the age of just 20 in February 1567.
His murder remains one of the most notorious unsolved crimes in history.
Next up is John Lyon, Lord Glamis, also the ancestor of our Queen, who was accidentally murdered in 1578 at the age of 34 in a street brawl in Stirling. He was Lord High Chancellor of Scotland.
He was shot in the head, and a contemporary attributed his unfortunate death to his “height.”
Robert Douglas, morton’s master, disappeared in 1585 at the age of 23 off the coast of Barbari.
Search groups were sent from England, but it was never found. No one knows if the Scottish aristocrat was killed by pirates or ended his days in slavery in Algeria.
More detective work is still needed to fill in the details of the unexplained murder of Agnes Fleming, Lady Livingstone, an employee of Mary Queen of Scots, who is linked to Camilla.
While traveling around England in 1597, she was killed.
No motive is known. Among her seven children was one of Camilla’s ancestors, Jean Lady Elphinstone.
Another brutal death of one of the future Queen’s ancestors wasfallen by Robert, 1st Earl of Kingston during the British Civil War.
The royalist was accidentally killed in July 1643.
Captured by The Roundheads, he was transported as a prisoner to Hull when royalist forces shot at his captors and Kingston’s body was cut into two by a cannon cannon.
Another victim was Sir John Gordon, who was executed at the age of 34 in Edinburgh in 1644 for supporting King Charles I in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
James Stewart, Earl of Morey, bears the dubious distinction of being the first person to be killed by a firearm in 1592.
Finally, another victim of the Civil War was Sir John Hotham, who married five times and had 16 children. He had supported parliamentarians against the crown but was accused of treason and executed with his son in Tower Hill.
Erotic writer behind the word “sadism”
Much-discussed notoriety is related to the writer and philosopher marquis de Sad, a relative of Camilla in the 17th century, Sebastian, Baron de Plouk.
One of the most famous figures in literature, de Sed’s works focus on sexual violence, suffering, perverted sex, crime and blasphemy; the word sadism comes from its name. Among his works is “120 Days from Sodom”.
De Sed spent 32 years in various prisons and an institution for the crazy, but defiantly continued to write his eroticism, dying in refuge at the age of 74 in 1814.
Much-discussed notoriety has to do with the writer and philosopher Marquis de Sad (pictured), a relative of Camilla in the 17th century predecessor, Sebastien, Baron de Plouk
Champion Brewer
In 1769, Camilla’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Brackspear, became the owner of the Cross Keys pub in Whitney, Oxon, and began boiling what became Brakspear’s Bitter.
Founder of Marxism
It is somewhat incredible that Karl Marx and Camilla were connected through the 17th-century Scottish aristocrat and politician, Sir Robert Campbell of Glenorchy.
The man whose writings encouraged the working class to revolutionise and led to the birth of communism has lived in exile in London for decades after discovering that his theories were unacceptable in his homeland, Germany.
While in England, Marx attracted the interest of Queen Victoria’s daughter, Princess Victoria.
That curiosity was answered in a letter sent to her by a Scottish politician in which he described Marx as having spoken of her “several times with due respect and correctness,” despite expressing “very sharp and insoluble criticism” of others he loathed.
It is somewhat incredible that Karl Marx (pictured) and Camilla were linked through a 17th-century Scottish aristocrat and politician, Sir Robert Campbell from Glenorchy
The slave trader who showed no compassion
Like all families, Camilla has a controversial relative – Captain Samuel Bonham, a naval officer who became a famous slave trader in the 18th century.
In 1733, Bonham’s slave galley, Sarah, sailed to America laden with gold, elephant tusks and 408 slaves.
By the time it reached the port, only 167 slaves had survived the 2,500-mile journey.
Professor Jonathan Caton, from the Thurrock Museum, located near bonham’s palace estate, built from the proceeds of slavery, said in 2007: “Many will feel uncomfortable with the fact that Bonham was dealing with people’s lives, but at the time he was a respected member of the Commonwealth.
—He would have regarded slaves simply as a commodity. He had no compassion for them, for at the time they were considered a subhuman species.
Neither Bonham was above milking the system. When another of his gallerists, Anne, was captured by pirates, he demanded compensation from the British government. Nine years later, his case still goes unanswered.