King Charles and Queen Camilla’s Secret to a Happy Marriage Includes One Aspect That “Looks a Little Odd to People”
King Charles and Queen Camilla’s Secret to a Happy Marriage Includes One Aspect That “Looks a Little Odd to People”
Rachel BurchfieldThu, August 6, 2026 at 1:35 PM UTC
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King Charles and Queen Camilla on April 21, 2026.Credit: GettyThe Gist -
King Charles and Queen Camilla have been married for over 21 years and in love for far longer than that.
One secret to their happy and successful marriage may admittedly look “a little odd to people,” royal editor Rebecca English said.
The two often spend ample time apart, particularly on weekends, when he retreats to Highgrove House and she heads off to Ray Mill House.
King Charles and Queen Camilla have been married for over 21 years and have been in love for well over 50 years—so something is clearly working in their relationship.
A key factor in the success of their marriage might seem strange to some, but it works for them—having ample alone time. The royal couple often spend weekends apart, Charles at his country home, Highgrove House, in Gloucestershire, and Camilla at Ray Mill House, the Wiltshire mansion she owned before marrying Charles in 2005.
The grounds of Ray Mill, Queen Camilla’s country home.Credit: Getty
On a recent episode of The Daily Mail’s “Palace Confidential” show, fans asked about Charles and Camilla’s unusual weekend arrangement. Royal editor Rebecca English said that Camilla’s decision to keep Ray Mill House—which she bought after divorcing her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, in the 1990s—was important to her.
“There were questions about whether she would keep it on when they got married,” English said. Though the 19th century home needed security and would require “extra costs,” English said that Camilla “made very clear that she wanted to keep it.”
Charles will sometimes go to Ray Mill House, but typically spends time at Highgrove on the weekends, where he “potters around his gardens,” English added.
Highgrove House in 2006.Credit: Getty Images
“They also live quite independent lives and I don’t think it affects their relationship at all,” she said, noting that the couple are “quite used to” living apart since they dated for years without living together.
“I can understand why it looks a little odd to people, but it actually works for them,” English said. Ray Mill House, she continued, “is a real bolthole for her. It’s very informal.”
“She has the children over,” English added. “She has the grandchildren over.” Meanwhile, she said, the king “can do his own things” at Highgrove.
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King Charles and Queen Camilla at Royal Ascot on June 19, 2026.Credit: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Royal biographer Robert Hardman added that Ray Mill House offers Camilla’s family—including her children Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes and their children—a place of “decompression” away from the formality of royal life.
“Her grandchildren need to have somewhere that they feel is theirs, where they can run around,” Hardman said. “If her grandchildren want to run around in Windsor or at [Buckingham] Palace, it’s like, ‘Oh, don’t knock that vase over. You can’t kick a ball in there!’”
He added, “When they’re at Granny’s house, it’s Granny’s house. Everyone can put on jeans and run around. They don’t have to call anybody ma’am or Royal Highness.”
King Charles and Queen Camilla at Royal Ascot on June 18, 2026.Credit: Getty Images
Time apart doesn’t make Charles and Camilla’s love any less strong. As royal historian Catherine Mayer wrote in her new book Divide & Rule (per Marie Claire), “With Camilla, you only need to see her and Charles together to understand that she has this…magical effect on him. It’s transformative.”
“You would see him tired, very obviously out of sorts,” Mayer continued of the king. “And then she would come into a room, and he would light up. She just lifts him.”
After Charles’s first wife Princess Diana’s death on August 31, 1997, the king “deemed Camilla’s role in his life a ‘non-negotiable,’” Mayer wrote.
Queen Camilla and King Charles at the White House in Washington, D.C. on April 30, 2026.Credit: Getty Images
“I think the non-negotiability was the point after the divorce and, of course, after Diana’s death,” she continued. “He understood that this was the one woman who could really sustain him. And I think he felt the need for that kind of support, and Camilla has clearly always been prepared to do that.”
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