--Wallis was a commoner and divorced. Camilla is a commoner and divorced. That's not it.
Draw.
--Wallis was American (read, not British) and divorced from her first husband when she began dating Edward. Camilla was/is British and never married when she first dated Charles.
Advantage Camilla.
--According to a biographer (Penny Junor) the young Charles liked to date lots of women, especially married, because that saved him from marriage. Realizing this, Camilla ditched Charles and married someone more grounded and less needing to get out from under heavy parental thumbs. Which made Charles want her more (depressingly familiar story) and left her feeling wistful for the man she actually wanted to be with. Thus began decades of their relationship as we've known it.
Advantage romance novelists.
--For years, rumor had it that Liz (a/k/a Mom) had forbidding Charles to marry Camilla because she was sexually carefree but Junor says Camilla's virginity wasn't the point. Camilla "would have married [Charles] at the drop of a hat [but] he . . . dithered and hedged his bets, and could not resist the charms of other women".
Advantage modern times.
--Mommy found suitably naive, gullible, sweet Diana for Charles and we know how that went.
Advantage psychiatry.
--So Cammy and Charley kept right on seeing each other even though she was married, just like Wallis.
Draw. (Are you having fun yet? Isn't this a lovely homey story to tell the grandkids?)
--Wallis had divorced her first husband long before she began dating Edward, who had not been married to anyone else, but she was still married to her second husband when she began dating Edward.
Big advantage Camilla.
--Wallis divorced her second husband to marry Edward.
Another big advantage Camilla.
--Head of the Church of England, Edward was supposed to remain far above the fray of common decorum lapses; marrying a double divorcee would have been way below and inside the pale.
Advantage Camilla.
--Head of the Church of England, Charles lost brownie points by being so hard on Diana what with dillydallying with Camilla right in public and everything.
Advantage Wallis.
--Charles' architectural and public art critiques, and his agricultural studies, not to mention his frequent nerdiness, annoy people, but so what.
Draw.
--Charles has raised his sons well, to his and their everylasting credit.
Advantage Charles.
--Edward flirted with appeasement in those pre-WWII days (hey, the Naziis made trains run on time and they cut wonderful figures when they strode into rooms or reviewed the troops) and he was impressed by Japanese order and airplanes, even visited Japan soon before the war began with quite a bit of fanfare. All of which meant he was sort of a public relations nightmare.
Advantage Camilla.
--Sixty-nine years after Edward abdicated (yikes that's a long time), Charles will marry Camilla. An article in the London Telegraph details germane and somewhat unsavory additional tidbits. Although none of it really speaks to why Edward had to resign and Charles may acceed, except that we're hipper and more forgiving now. Or something.
I sure hope Liz is proud of forcing Charles to marry naive unaware immature sweet Diana, leading inexorably to tabloid and paparazzi feeding frenzies, not to mention whispered tampax analogies, car crashes, weeping and such. And I sincerely hope everyone lives happily ever after like good kings and queens (and their consorts and paramours) are supposed to.
Advantage newpaper and television gossips and the readers/viewers.

Labels: farewells, fun, history