As Camilla is crowned alongside the king at Westminster Abbey on 6 May, might she cast her mind back some 20 years and reflect on the debt of gratitude she undoubtedly owes to one man in particular?
If the Duke of Sussex is present – though it’s not certain Charles’s avenging younger son will be – might he too dwell, with less appreciation, on the part played by the same man in his stepmother’s once unthinkable transformation from mistress to queen consort ?
As he writes in his memoir, Spare, Harry sees himself as collateral damage in the campaign orchestrated in the late 90s and early 00s to rehabilitate Charles and pave the way for marriage to Camilla, partly though “the new spin doctor Camilla had talked Pa into hiring”.
Unnamed in the book, he is widely believed to be Mark Bolland, who meticulously choreographed those early first steps towards the realisation of his royal master’s non-negotiable ambition: to reign with Camilla seated on the throne beside him.
Today, Charles’s popularity soars compared with the “sagging” reputation Harry describes immediately following Diana’s death. And Camilla’s acceptance reached its zenith when the late Queen Elizabeth II used her platinum jubilee message to express her “sincere wish” she become queen consort.
Bolland, described in Valentine Low’s book Courtiers as “clever, charming, manipulative” and “one of the most colourful and interesting players in the royal drama of the last 30 years”, is now long gone from palace life. He departed St James’s in 2002, after six years as assistant then deputy private secretary, to set up his own PR consultancy, initially with Charles and Camilla as star clients until ties were severed in early 2003.
Yet the way he seemingly set about his task, which at the time sent shudders through a Buckingham Palace old guard unfamiliar with Bolland’s brand of PR alchemy, clearly made a deep impression on a then teenaged Harry. Indeed, from Harry’s narrative, it may be possible to detect some of the seeds of his trenchant loathing of the press and his accusations of palace collusion with the fourth estate back to the, some would say, overzealous methods Bolland is alleged to have employed.
“Bolland’s number one job was to make Camilla more presentable. And he was very, very successful. Very good at it,” said one royal observer.
“If you look at Camilla now, she’s on the privy council. She was a firm favourite of the queen. And when she became queen consort, that was the culmination of the job that Bolland started.”
The problem was that at Buckingham Palace, just down the Mall from St James’s, they simply did not know how to deal with him. Stories unflattering to other royals were appearing.
And the way they were dealt with caused concern. The Earl of Wessex found himself trounced. And Harry has lamented being spun “right under a bus”.
Critics attributed this partly to Bolland, and claimed he operated on a “Charles good, all other royals bad” basis in his quest to augment the then Prince of Wales. It’s a claim Bolland has previously denied, insisting it was put about by Buckingham Palace courtiers jealous of the success of Charles’s team.
During the Bolland era there was consternation at Buckingham Palace. People feared leaks. People were saying that bad things were happening and discussing where they were coming from, the Guardian has been told. Everybody was very stressed.
“But he did a great job for Charles. What people – what Harry in particular – call ‘leaking’, well that’s just information. There’s a difference,” said the royal observer.
Reportedly called “Lord Blackadder” by William and Harry – another sobriquet for the smooth operator was, apparently, “Lip Gloss” – Toronto-born Bolland, who was schooled at a Middlesbrough comprehensive, was definitely different from the traditional idea of a courtier. Depicted in the latest season of The Crown as young, dynamic and decisive, he was lured to St James’s, aged 30, in 1996 from the Press Complaints Commission, where he was director, and enjoyed easy access to Fleet Street editors. He was friends with Rebekah Brooks, then Wade, who at the time was editor of the News of the World.
Under his auspices, Camilla was introduced to New York society in 1999. That same year, the first photograph of Charles and Camilla together, leaving her sister Annabel’s 50th birthday party at the Ritz, attracted so many photographers that the British Epilepsy Association reportedly urged broadcasters not to reuse footage in case it triggered seizures. A first meeting with the queen and Camilla, at a Highgrove party for ex-King Constantine of Greece, followed.
Then there was the PCC’s 10th anniversary party, hosted by Bolland’s then partner who became his husband, the Conservative peer Guy Black, who is now deputy chair of the Telegraph Media Group but back then had succeeded Bolland as director of the PCC. Stars mingled with politicians and royals against the backdrop of the Gilbert Collection at Somerset House: an “unadulterated, alpha plus, 24-carat triumph”, one admirer told the Observer. With Charles, Camilla and William together in public for the first time, it was another significant milestone.
The narrative was changing. But at what cost?
Harry certainly believes he was sacrificed in the process, along with his brother. In Spare, he points the finger at the unnamed Bolland for aiding and abetting the “pinpoint accurate” details that appeared of 16-year-old William’s first private meeting with Camilla, though “royal sources” have reportedly denied these claims made in the book of leaking on behalf of Camilla.
He also writes of being “horrified, sickened” at a seven-page spread in the News of the World, which had obtained a dossier of evidence of his teenaged drinking and drug taking. Bolland, on not being able to deny the story, had in response informed the newspaper of a visit Harry had made to a rehabilitation centre. The result was an overspun story: “Worried Charles chose to terrify Harry away from drugs by sending him to therapy sessions with hardcore heroin addicts.” A “family friend” was quoted: “He has never done drugs since.” A win-win for Charles.
Except the rehab centre visit had taken place two months before the evidence obtained by the newspaper and was a “typical part of my princely charitable work”, according to Harry’s book. Bolland later explained, in a rare newspaper interview in the Guardian in 2003, that he had told the News of the World about the visit, but had subsequently been “embarrassed” at the newspaper’s overzealous attempts to be helpful. “They presented it in a much more triumphalist manner than was justified,” he said.
Harry’s conclusion is he was spun “right under a bus” in order to portray Charles as a “harried single dad coping with a drug-addled son”.
Another alleged example of Bolland’s discomfiting spinning occurred when Prince Edward’s Ardent Productions crew failed to obey palace instructions for all media to leave St Andrews after a photocall with William while at university. Stories appeared quoting a “royal aide” saying Charles was “incandescent” and called his brother a “fucking idiot”. Bolland later told the Guardian: “I doubt I used that language, but it’s probably got my fingerprints on it.”
Bolland declined the offer to comment for this article.
In December 2001, the Daily Telegraph, in a highly critical article, called Bolland “the real power behind” the future king and asked: “Has the puppet master of St James’s finally pulled one string too many?” Another, in the Spectator, asked: “Charles’s spin doctor may be good for the prince’s ego but is he good for the royal family and the nation?”
Bolland, who was about to set up his own PR consultancy, departed St James’s in February 2002, although he retained Charles and Camilla as clients until 2003. Relations between him and Charles’s new private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, imported from Buckingham Palace, over the handling of stories were reportedly strained.
After his consultancy contract expired, he maintained links with Camilla for several months, until it became too difficult. “That’s when I said to Camilla: ‘I love you dearly, let’s have lunch or dinner a couple of times a year, but I can’t be at the end of a phone any more,’” he said in a 2004 interview for the British Journalism Review.
But he did not disappear completely, rocking up as a columnist at the News of the World, called Blackadder, in which he sometimes shared his critical analysis of Charles and his aides. He disbanded the column little more than a year later, finding it too time-consuming.
In 2006 he surfaced again, this time in the form of a witness statement on behalf of the Mail on Sunday, which was embroiled in legal action with Charles over its publication of his travel journal, in which he described some Chinese officials as “appalling old waxworks”.
In the statement, he not only said Charles’s travel journals were not especially private – being circulated to between 50 and 75 people – but also revealed Charles “often referred to himself as a ‘dissident’ working against the prevailing political consensus”.
It was revealing, too, about the way Bolland operated.
Back in 1999, when Charles did not attend a return banquet hosted by the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, during his state visit to the UK, a St James’s Palace spokesperson denied reports it was a “snub” by Charles, a known admirer of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, and saying the prince had a previous engagement.
Roll forward to that 2006 witness statement, and Bolland attests he was given “a direct and personal instruction” by Charles to draw the media’s attention to his banquet boycott and that Charles was “delighted” at the ensuing coverage.
One former royal correspondent wonders how proactive Charles himself was back in those Bolland days. “I suppose the question is how far Charles himself led that campaign. How much he was on board with it. He must have been, otherwise Bolland wouldn’t have done it.”
Bolland’s task was to “win over the Mail and the Sun, particularly, because they were very pro-Diana”, added the correspondent. In that, he very much succeeded.
Years have since passed. Camilla’s stock continued its ascent. But few could disagree over who first laid the foundations for the journey that will ultimately culminate on 6 May when the crown is finally and firmly placed on the head of the nation’s new queen consort.
