There was some concern at Buckingham Palace after Princess Anne rekindled her friendship with Andrew Parker Bowles after Camilla’s extramarital affair with then-Prince Charles became public.
“After the Camillagate tapes were released, both (Camilla and Andrew Parker Bowles) were prepared to admit that their situation was ‘pretty unfortunate,’ but with their children still in school (as they also have a teenage daughter, Laura) they were not prepared to separate or divorce,” James Whitaker, a veteran journalist and author, revealed in his explosive 1993 book Diana Vs Charles.
“However, it is an open secret among his friends that until Commander Timothy Laurence came into the picture, the Brigadier (Parker Bowles) had once again been spending time in Princess Anne’s company, taking her to the cinema, the theater and to dinner at various restaurants. She visited him at his home, then at Bolehyde Manor near Chipenham, and saw a lot of him when he was commanding officer at Knightsbridge Barracks,” the royal journalist wrote.
“It was suggested that at times there was too little discretion and that Andrew and the princess had resumed their friendship. Despite Andrew’s popularity among staff and royals alike, there was some concern at Buckingham Palace about where this relationship would lead. But upsetting the princess is not something people do voluntarily, so very little was said. As Anne became more and more interested in the man who would eventually become her second husband, she saw less and less of Andrew Parker Bowles.”
Anne, the only daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II and sister of King Charles, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Prince Edward, married Timothy Laurence in December 1992.
At the time of her second marriage, the Princess Royal had two children, Peter and Zara, by her first husband, Captain Mark Philips, whom she married in 1973 and divorced in 1992.
