While she didn't grow up as royalty, Queen Consort Camilla has been exposed to the royal ways for decades - even before meeting King Charles. Born Camilla Rosemary Shand, the now 75-year-old belonged to the same social circles as Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon when she was in her mid 20s.
These royal guests even attended her first wedding with Andrew Parker Bowles, a then Guards officer - in the early 1970s, after the couple met through his younger brother, Simon, who worked for her father's wine firm in Mayfair, London. Camilla was raised in East Sussex and South Kensington with parents Major Bruce Shand, a British Army officer-turned-businessman, and his wife Rosalind, the daughter of Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe.
She attended Dumbrells, a school in Ditchling village, in the Lewes district of East Sussex, until aged 10 when she moved to Queen's Gate School, in South Kensington.
She ended her education in England in 1964, leaving Queen's Gate School with one O-level. She did not stay long enough to sit her A-levels.
Following this, the new Queen Consort attended the Mon Fertile finishing school, in Tolochenaz, Switzerland, before studying French and French literature for six months at the University of London Institute in Paris.
It wasn't until she moved back to England when Camilla joined the working world as a secretary for a number of firms in the West End.
Wanting a career change, she landed a receptionist job with the decorating firm Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler in Mayfair - but she was reportedly fired after arriving to work late "having been to a dance" the night before.
Camilla and Andrew's engagement was announced in The Times in 1973 just months before their marriage at the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks, in London.
But not too long into their marriage, Andrew ended their relationship and started courting King Charles' sister, Princess Anne.
Despite this, Camilla and Andrew went on to have two children together, Tom, born December 1974, and Laura, born January 1978.
But after an on-and-off relationship, they eventually ended up divorcing each other, finalising their paperwork in March 1995.
Camilla is said to have met her future husband King Charles in 1971 at the home of their friend Lucía Santa Cruz, who formally introduced them.
While it is widely thought the couple met at a polo match, their biographer Brandreth stated this was not the case.
Their relationship came to an end when King Charles travelled overseas to join the Royal Navy in early 1973.
However, there have been varying accounts as to why their relationship did not stand the test of time and distance, with one being that he asked her not to wait for him.
Another suggests his great-uncle Lord Mountbatten arranged for him to leave the country in order to end their relationship to make way for an engagement with his granddaughter Amanda Knatchbull.
While a third theorised Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother did not approve of the match and instead wanted King Charles to marry one of her close friend Lady Femony's granddaughters.
Regardless, many royal biographers have agreed King Charles would not have been allowed to marry Camilla because she would have made an 'unsuitable prospective consort', under royal opinion.
Instead, King Charles famously married Princess Diana in 1981, with the couple having two children together, Prince William and Prince Harry.
But during their marriage, Princess Diana came to realise King Charles had 'gone back' to Camilla and she ended up confronting the former Duchess of Cornwall about it at a party held for Lady Annabel Goldsmith in February 1989.
In Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story — In Her Own Words, it tells of the face-to-face with Camilla as she detailed the misery of her marriage.
After plucking up the courage to have a 'quick word' with Camilla, she made her feelings about the betrayal known.
"I’m sorry I’m in the way - I obviously am in the way and it must be hell for both of you, but I do know what is going on. Don’t treat me like an idiot," she told her, reads an extract of the book.
King Charles and Diana separated in 1992 before their divorce in August 1996, two months after Queen Elizabeth II suggested the idea.
But just one year later, Princess Diana sadly died in a car crash in Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, France, causing an unprecedented outpouring of public grief around the world.
King Charles was reportedly "absolutely distraught" upon hearing the devastating news - and woke their children up at 4.30am to tell them what had happened.
Her funeral was watched by about 2.5 billion people before she was laid to rest on an island in the middle of a lake called The Oval, which is part of the Pleasure Garden at Althorp.
While mourning Princess Diana, King Charles continued his royal duties and tried to support his son's through their grief.
In 2005, he proposed to Camilla with an engagement ring that had belonged to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
The couple celebrated their 17th wedding anniversary in April.
Following Queen Elizabeth II's death on Thursday, September 8, Camilla became Queen consort under the late Queen's wishes - and has moved into Buckingham Palace with King Charles III.
The late Queen will be buried alongside her beloved husband Prince Philip in the Royal Vault at Windsor, it has been confirmed by Buckingham Palace.
She will be laid to rest in a private service in King George VI's chapel following her state funeral on Monday morning.
Follow the latest updates as the world mourns Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III begins his reign on our live blog.
