The Simple ‘Pact’ Queen Camilla Made With King Charles Before Their 2005 Wedding
Happy anniversary, King Charles III and Queen Camilla! As the pair mark 20 years of marriage, revisit the “pact” they made before saying “I do.” Hint: It involved real estate and continues to this day for the royal couple.
Charles and Camilla got married in a low-key 2005 wedding
On April 9, 2005, King Charles— the then Prince of Wales—married Camilla Parker Bowles. They tied the knot in a civil wedding ceremony at Windsor Guildhall. They said their vows to minimal fanfare, a world away from the groom’s 1981 royal wedding to Princess Diana. This time around, there were no balcony kisses or carriage rides.
Instead, the now-king and queen got married in a relatively quiet ceremony. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip didn’t even attend. King Charles’s parents, who died in 2022 and 2021, were, however, present for a religious blessing at St. George’s Chapel. Later, they hosted a reception for the bride and groom.
Queen Elizabeth offered some advice to King Charles and Queen Camilla on their wedding day. She also delivered what has since been described as an “olive branch” of a reception speech.
Prince Harry also detailed his father’s nuptials in his 2023 Spare memoir. The now 40-year-old recalled how his new stepmother made his father happy. The wedding was also depicted on The Crown, the Netflix series about Queen Elizabeth’s reign (seen below).
Camilla and Charles made a ‘pact’ before their wedding that she’d keep Ray Mill House
The king and queen “actually actually spend quite a lot of time apart,” Ingrid Seward, the editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, told The Sun’s Fabulous. Why? It goes back to the “pact” King Charles and Queen Camilla made before they got married about her keeping her royal escape, Ray Mill House.
“Before she married Charles, she made a pact with him that she would keep Ray Mill House as her bolthole,” Seward explained. “She goes every weekend when she can. And she goes during the summer so that she can spend some time with her grandchildren and her children, and it’s something that’s away from the whole royal world.”
Queen Camilla bought Ray Mill House, which is her “sort of release from royal life,” in 1995 after divorcing her first husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. Located in Wiltshire, England, Camilla bought it for a reported £850,000 or $1 million. Ray Mill House boasts Italianate style, 12 acres of gardens and orchards, and a pool.
“Quite often she doesn’t go to Highgrove [the king’s private home] at all unless she and Charles are entertaining together,” Seward continued. “She’ll just go straight to Ray Mill House and spend the weekend there.”
The draw of spending time at Ray Mill House for Camilla is “getting away from the restrictions of the security and being surrounded by staff and people doing things for you, which, of course, sounds lovely for all of us.”
“I think in her case,” the expert added, “she needed somewhere where she could actually relax and just be herself, and slope around in dirty jeans if she wanted to and not be constantly monitored.”
King Charles now owns the house next door to Queen Camilla
The king and queen are neighbors after King Charles reportedly bought the home next door to Ray Mill House in March 2025. Per the Daily Mail, Camilla felt “great anxiety” when she learned the property next door, The Old Mill, had been put on the market. Those feelings only increased at the idea of it becoming a potential wedding venue.
“Think of it—dozens of wedding guests carousing every weekend just the other side of her fence,” a source said at the time. “[Camilla] has her horses, she walks her dogs, and she loves spending time with her family. This business with her neighbor was frankly the last thing she needed.”
So, King Charles used “private funds” totaling around $3.9 million to buy the property himself. The gesture left Camilla “grateful and relieved.” It also proved to be a “sound financial investment” and a way to maintain the queen’s “privacy,” per an insider.
The Old Mill is now reportedly on its way to being leased to a “security-vetted tenant.” Meanwhile, Queen Camilla still owns—and visits—Ray Mill House.
