A royal author has claimed that King Charles ' failed marriage to Princess Diana caused the family monarchy to "fall apart".
Historian Tessa Dunlop made the comparison between the royal pair, whose marriage ended in a "giant failure", and the Queen and Prince Philip - who were happily married for 73 years until Philip's death.
Although King Charles has since remarried to Camilla, Queen Consort, his first divorce apparently means he can't rely on a long manage to promote the "family monarchy" as his parents did, according to the new book 'Elizabeth and Philip: A Story of Young Love, Marriage and Monarchy'.
The royal author told the Mirror : "Seventy-five years ago Princess Elizabeth walked down the aisle with her war-hero husband, Philip.
"The stunning pair were instant trend-setters - 200 million listened to the wedding of the decade in a record-breaking year for tying the knot.
"Britain's pin-up family, the House of Windsor, had reached dizzy new heights. Within a year Prince Charles was born; the original baby boomer, his arrival sealed the deal for family monarchy."
Tessa added: "In this era of the nuclear family, divorce laws didn't change for over twenty years."
She said that the Queen and Prince Philip's marriage would be a "tough act to follow" given how perfect they were as a couple in a fast-changing society.
And in her opinion, Charles needs to rebrand and find another way in which he can lead the monarchy today.
Tessa said: "By 1980, the pressure on Charles was huge. Britain wanted another royal wedding. On the surface, his marriage looked like the perfect second act - another blushing bride with her sailor-prince.
"But times had changed: divorce was prevalent, celebrity culture distorting, infidelity unacceptable. Charles and Diana's giant wedding ended in giant failure. Family monarchy fell apart."
"Charles is the product of his generation just as his parents were of theirs. But can our everyman king find a new brand as potent as family monarchy? Let's hope so for the sake of our divided nation."
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