The UK press is struggling with how to refer to the wife of King Charles III. Her first name is Camilla; the rest of her name is confusing. Many still refer to her as Camilla Parker Bowles, the surname coming from her earlier 1973 marriage to Andrew Parker Bowles from whom she was divorced in 1995. She continued to use the unhyphenated Parker Bowles surname until her marriage to Prince Charles in 2005 whereupon she became the Duchess of Cornwall, acquiring the title from one of Charles’ many titles. But, Duchess of Cornwall is a title, not a surname and, when a surname was required, the British press continued to use the Parker Bowles family name. Why she didn’t become Camilla Mountbatten-Windsor (perhaps she disliked the hyphen?) is a mystery to me but I’ve no doubt there is an antiquated law somewhere that says a divorced woman who marries a royal personage cannot adopt the royal personage’s surname?

Back to Camilla. When, Charles became King last year, Camilla was upgraded from being a duchess to becoming the Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and questions were asked about whether she would become Queen if she outlives Charles. The answer is no. A female consort is someone who marries a reigning monarch whereas a queen is an inherited title. Prince Philip was a male consort to Queen Elizabeth, as was Prince Albert to Queen Victoria. Neither could ever become a monarch if they outlived their partner. A Queen and a Queen Consort are as different as chalk and cheese. (Question: why wasn’t Prince Philip known as King Consort Philip? Google it. The answer may surprise you.) So now to the point of this blog.

I have noticed recently that The Times has taken to dropping the word consort when referring to Camilla by her title.  She is simply referred to as Queen. But confusion reigns in other UK newspapers. Yesterday, Camilla weighed in against the editors at Puffin Books for sanitising Roald Dahl’s books for children. Here’s how today’s front pages refer to her intervention both in headline and in the first in-text reference.

Daily Telegraph
Headline: Queen
Text: Queen

Daily Mail
Headline: Camilla
Text: Queen Consort

Daily Express
Headline: Queen
Text: Queen

I
Headline: Camilla
Text: ?

Those papers that opted to relegate Camilla’s opinion to the inside pages also reflected confusion. Here is a sample from three other newspapers:

The Times
Headline: Camilla
Text: Queen

The Independent
Headline: Queen Consort
Text: Queen Consort

The Guardian
Headline: Camilla
Text: Camilla, the Queen Consort

Final score:

So, there you have it. If I was an editor of a UK newspaper, I wouldn’t use any of Camilla, Queen or Queen Consort. I would always refer to the lady as Queen Gladys Consort or, more simply, just plain old Gladys. It has a nice homely ring to it and Charles liked that name.

Footnote.

Like Gladys, I too am puzzled by the Puffin editors’ so-called sanitisation of Dahl’s classic stories. Why do so? At the time the stories were written (1960s through 1980s), fat people were called fat, ugly people were called ugly, a group of people who were all men were called men, women worked as cashiers and typists (and still do), and artistic licence allowed earthworms to have pink skin. It’s madness to replace these descriptions with sanitised ‘woke’ inoffensive versions. Who would benefit from such bland offerings?

I question also the legality of making such changes. Consider repainting the smile of Mona Lisa because someone somewhere says they find it enigmatic and therefore worrying, or chipping off the very exposed male genitals in the blatantly sexual legs-apart sculpture known as Barberini Faun, Sleeping Drunken Satyr, or applying black tape** to cover up exposed breasts and genitals in Helmut Newton’s photographs of nude women, or…

But, if the Puffin editors have started a trend that will continue with other literary works, I look forward to the sanitised version of the Bible. Boy oh boy, there is so much in that book that offends – murder, rape, misogyny, violence, sexist, racism, incest, slavery, mutilation, homophobia, death by stoning and crucifixion, immaculate conception and virgin birth, mythical beings who ‘must be obeyed’, … the list is never ending. I would volunteer to be part of the team assembled to sanitise the Bible!

** I apologise to anyone offended by my use of the adjective black to describe the colour of the tape. I meant to use nontransparent or darkened or even dusky (dangerous, that one; connations of nubile maidens) but then I thought, leave as is, live dangerously. So, the tape remains black.

(^_^)