Queen Camilla's relative once had an affair with a King, and he's related to Charles III

The love triangle that existed between King Charles III, Princess Diana and Camilla Parker-Bowles is well-known. However, the Queen Consort isn’t the first in her family to have had an affair with a married royal.

King Charles III and ‘Dirty Bertie’

It has been pointed out that King Charleslooks like his great-great-grandfather, King Edward VII. But their resemblances don’t stop there.

Both men were the eldest sons of a reigning Queen and had to wait decades to ascend to the throne. Before King Charles, Edward was the longest-serving Prince of Wales.

Another point the pair have in common is extramarital relationships. According to a Channel 4 documentary, Charles once told Diana:

Well, I refuse to be the only Prince of Wales who never had a mistress.

During his time as the Prince of Wales, the then-Prince Albert is said to have had more than 50 affairs, earning him the nickname of ‘Dirty Bertie’. Becoming King Edward when he took the throne, he reportedly had a dedicated room reserved for him at the Chabanais, the most famous brothel in Paris, where he kept his bespoke ‘love chair’, per Un Jour De Plus A Paris.

King Edward reportedly commissioned Louis Soubrier to design the chair that enabled him to simultaneously have sex with at least two women. Mail Online claims that the custom-made chair allowed the corpulent King to ‘indulge in sexual fantasies without crushing his female partners’.

On top of these escapades to Parisian brothels, King Edward also had a string of more serious mistresses. His favourite was Queen Consort Camilla's great-grandmother, Alice Keppel.

‘Flirtatious Freddie’

According to the book Notorious Royal Marriages; A Juicy Journey Through Nine Centuries of Dynasty, Destiny and Desire, during their first meeting, Camilla said to the then-Prince Charles:

My great-grandmother and your great-great-grandfather were lovers so – how about it?

Princess Diana said in her infamous Panorama interview:

There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.

Unlike Camilla’s scandalous relationship with Charles, her great-grandmother’s affair with King Edward was considered acceptable, according to Town & Country.

Alice Frederica Keppel, also known as ‘Flirtatious Freddie’, was King Edward's favourite mistress. The pair met in 1898 and despite their large age gap, Keppel and the King enjoyed a 12-year illicit relationship.

According to the publication, both King Edward's wife, Queen Consort Alexandra, and Keppel’s husband, George, were aware of the affair.

Keppel's husband, George, reportedly said:

I do not mind what she does as long as she comes back to me in the end.

Queen Consort Alexandra is said to have found Keppel very useful for keeping King Edward happy and preferred her to the King’s previous mistresses because of her discretion. However, after the King’s passing in 1910, there was no room for Keppel in court.

Sources used:

- Town & Country: Who is Alice Keppel? Camilla's Ancestor was Mistress to King Edward VII

- Mail Online: Camilla Duchess of Cornwall’s family tree shows she is related to Madonna, Celine Dion — and even Prince Charles

- Metro: Prince Charles ‘told Diana it was his right to have a mistress’

- Un Jour De Plus A Paris: Edward VII, aka Dirty Bertie, the most Parisian of English kings

- Mail Online: Valentine's Day gift fit for a playboy prince! Replica of love chair designed to allow 'Dirty Bertie' King Edward VII to have sex with at least two women goes on sale for $68K in New Orleans

- History: Why Princess Diana's 1995 BBC Interview Shocked the World