WITH a famously roving eye, Queen Camilla’s ex- husband Andrew Parker Bowles has been described as “a bit of a rogue” and “very naughty with women”.
One of the inspirations for caddish Rupert Campbell-Black in Jilly Cooper’s horsey bonkbuster novel Riders, he is also known for his immense charm.
The news, broken by The Sun yesterday, that he is dating TV’s “Queen of Mean” — former Weakest Link host Anne Robinson — suggests he will need to have his wits about him now.
A friend of the pair has said she makes him laugh “a lot”, while he is claimed to be “one of the few people to get away with poking fun at” the ex-Countdown presenter.
Known for her caustic humour, Anne once told viewers: “Sad old blokes, I’m told, now dream of me with a whip in hand.”
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On the face of it, they are an unlikely couple.
He is the grandson of a Hertfordshire country estate- owning baronet and was a page boy at Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation.
Anne’s mother sold chickens from a stall in Liverpool’s St John’s Market before establishing a thriving wholesale business.
Former Fleet Street hack Anne is unlikely to stand for any bunkum.
In 2021 she revealed her mother had taught her “not to be afraid of anything”.
Twice-married Anne, 79, added: “I come from a long line of wild, Irish alcoholic wolves.”
Though Andrew, 83, has a twinkle in his eye, he is also affable company and a loyal friend.
Known in royal circles as the Brigadier, he has remained on excellent terms with Camilla, despite his marital infidelities.
Andrew — who shares children Tom and Laura with the new Queen — was present at her marriage to Charles and their Coronation.
Camilla’s closest friend and one of her Queen’s Companions, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, said: “Everybody loves Andrew. He’s a real charmer but he’s always terribly misbehaving.”
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Of his relationship with Camilla, she added: “Andrew will ring her up and tell her when she’s got something wrong.
“And she’ll ring him up and say when he’s misbehaving.
"Through adversity they’ve kept a really good family ethic. It helps with their children and grandchildren.”
Andrew has been mixing in royal circles since childhood.
Raised Catholic, his well-to-do parents Derek and Ann were friends with Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
He was educated at Ampleforth College — the so-called Catholic Eton — before entering the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
A dashing young officer, he was commissioned into the Royal Horse Guards in 1960.
Everybody loves Andrew. He’s a real charmer but he’s always terribly misbehaving.
Marchioness of Lansdowne
And as a keen amateur jockey rode The Fossa to 11th place in the 1969 Grand National.
Horse racing was a passion he shared with Charles, the then Prince of Wales.
The pair also played polo on the same team.
Smooth-talking Andrew was 25 when he first met a 17-year-old Camilla at her “coming out” cocktail party as a debutante in March 1965.
They met again at a bash in Scotland in 1966, when he asked her to dance.
They became an item but Andrew couldn’t resist other women, including Camilla’s friends.
According to author Penny Junor in her book The Duchess: The Untold Story, on occasion Camilla would retaliate.
She relates the tale of how Camilla spotted Andrew’s car parked outside the flat of one of her best friends, so scrawled a rude message on the windscreen and let his tyres down.
Their rocky relationship fizzled out in 1970.
Camilla would begin a romance with Prince Charles, meeting at polo matches and exclusive club Annabel’s in London’s Berkeley Square.
Meanwhile, Andrew dated Charles’ sister Princess Anne, a union immortalised in season three of The Crown.
In one scene, Andrew — played by Andrew Buchan — flirts at a party with the royal, portrayed by Erin Doherty.
The show’s writers then had Anne sipping a post-sex Bloody Mary in bed while Andrew wandered around topless.
However, their relationship couldn’t have ended in marriage.
At the time, heirs to the throne would have been removed from the line of succession if they wed a Catholic.
Prince Charles’s biographer Sally Bedell Smith wrote: “Even when their romance eventually wound down, they remained lifelong friends.”
Andrew is also godfather to Princess Anne’s daughter Zara.
In 1973, Charles and Camilla’s relationship was put on hold after he was posted overseas with the Royal Navy.
That same year Andrew proposed to Camilla after their parents placed an engagement notice in The Times.
Charles wrote to Lord Mountbatten saying: “I suppose the feeling of emptiness will pass eventually.
Andrew and Camilla married that year at the Guards’ Chapel at Wellington Barracks in London.
It was considered the “society wedding of the year”.
Among the 800 guests were Princess Anne, Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother.
The couple set up home at Bolehyde Manor in Allington, Wilts.
In 1974 they had son Tom, followed by daughter Laura in 1978.
I come from a long line of wild, Irish alcoholic wolves.
Anne Robinson
Yet Andrew’s philandering continued.
Penny Junor tells of a dinner party when a woman teased Andrew: “I’m the only one of Camilla’s friends you haven’t made a pass at. What’s wrong with me?”
Andrew forged an illustrious military career, serving in Northern Ireland and being awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in Zimbabwe.
He was one of the first on the scene in Hyde Park when the IRA detonated a bomb that killed four soldiers and seven horses in 1982.
He called it the “saddest moment of his military life”.
For three years, Andrew was Colonel Commanding the Household Cavalry and Silver Stick in Waiting to the Queen.
When later placed in charge of the Army’s Veterinary and Remount Services, which managed the military’s horses and dogs, he was given the nickname Barker Bowles.
He retired from the Army as a Brigadier in 1994. The Parker Bowles would remain close to Charles.
In 1981, the future King proposed to Lady Diana Spencer in the flower garden of Bolehyde Manor.
Andrew continued his extra-marital affairs and his union with Camilla was fraying beyond repair.
In a 1994 interview, Charles would admit adultery with Camilla after his relationship with Diana had “irretrievably broken down”.
That December, the Parker Bowleses issued divorce proceedings on the grounds they had been living separately for years.
Yet Andrew would remain a close confidant of Camilla.
A friend told The Sunday Times last year: “They are joined at the hip.
“He arranges so much for her. They lunch together. He was always, and still is, Camilla’s co-conspirator.”
In 1996, Andrew Parker married long-time partner Rosemary Pitman in London.
Sun Royal Photographer Arthur Edwards, who snapped them afterwards, said: “He had found love with a new wife and remained great friends with his old one — not always an easy trick to pull off.”
Andrew and Rosemary holidayed with Camilla in Antigua in 2008. They joined her and Charles at Sandringham a number of times.
Rosemary died in 2010 aged 69.
Camilla was reported to have been “deeply saddened” by the news.
Despite a stellar career in newspapers and TV, Anne has also suffered heartache.
A one-time chronic alcoholic, she lost custody of daughter Emma.
And her drinking contributed to the break-up of her first marriage to late Times editor Charles Wilson.
She quit booze in 1978 but a second marriage to journalist John Penrose also failed.
She once said: “‘I’m not going to marry a third time. It is not necessary. It is quite hard at my age to find someone that punches at your weight.
“I am quite demanding.”
Andrew may well have met his match.
