And while she was surrounded by the royal family, Queen Camilla found a way to keep her grandchildren close to her heart. Behind her elegant string of pearls was a hidden second necklace. Perhaps the Queen’s most personal piece of jewellery, this simple pendant features a ruby on one side (Queen Camilla’s birthstone) and on the other side is engraved with the initials of her five grandchildren from her first marriage to Brigadier Andrew Parker Bowles.
The Queen wore a necklace that bears a subtle tribute to her beloved grandchildren
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Queen Camilla is grandmother to two granddaughters and three grandsons, born to her two children Tom Parker Bowles and Laura Lopes. The pendant features the five letters of her grandchildren: ‘L’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘L’ and ‘E’ for Lola, Freddy, Gus, Eliza and Louis.
During her time as Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla would occasionally offer touching insights into her grandsons’ cordial relationship with their step-grandfather, then Prince Charles. At one stage, she told the Daily Mail: ‘he reads them Harry Potter… And he does all the voices, because he is a brilliant mimic. They sit spellbound.’
Queen Camilla talks to her grandson Freddy Parker Bowles on the Buckingham Palace balcony following the Coronation in 2023
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In 2022, she opened up about her own relationship with her beloved grandchildren, telling British Vogue: ‘You know the nice thing about being a grandmother is that you can spoil them occasionally, give them more of the things that their parents forbid them to have.’