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The Prince and Princess of Wales have led well wishes to Queen Camilla as she celebrates her 77th birthday.
Kate and William extended their good wishes to Camilla, born Camilla Rosemary Shand in 1947, on Twitter/X, writing “Wishing Her Majesty a very Happy Birthday!” on the official Kensington Palace account.
This message was accompanied by a beaming picture of the Queen, known for her love of gardening, next to a basket of flowers.
These sentiments were echoed by the official royal family Twitter account, which shared a picture of Camilla in Guernsey on her recent trip to the Channel Islands this week.
Camilla, later Parker Bowles, grew up between London and her family home in East Sussex and was said to have developed a love of reading as a child.
This has been a feature of her work in the royal family, and she has fostered literacy through her charity and book club, the Queen’s Reading Room.
Camilla has won particular praise from the British people this year amid the royal family’s ongoing health concerns and undertook various engagements alone following news of King Charles’s cancer diagnosis in February.
Wishing Her Majesty a very Happy Birthday! pic.twitter.com/7rvr2Q5Rj9
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) July 17, 2024
An insider told the Daily Mail’s Rebecca English: “She’s been an absolute trooper, really she has. She just gets up and goes out there, doing exactly what’s asked of her with a smile on her face.
“I always think you see the best of people at the worst of times, and I really hope people realise how true that is here.”
Camilla married King Charles in 2005, but their relationship goes back as far as 1970.
While their friendship-turned-relationship was on and off, Charles said that they rekindled when his marriage to the late Princess Diana had “irretrievably broken down” in 1986.
However, it would not be until 1999 that the couple would make their first public appearance together at the Ritz Hotel in London.
The Ritz is a favourite haunt of the couple, and it has been speculated that they could make an appearance there today.
The King and Queen had a busy morning with the State Opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech – the second of his reign, which outlined the plans of the new Labour government.
Camilla’s birthday was also celebrated on the royal family’s Instagram account, where a clip of students from Sark School singing to the Queen was shared.
“Birthday celebrations started early in Guernsey yesterday...” it was captioned.
