The Crown uncovers Princess Anne's love triangle with Andrew Parker-Bowles and Camilla
The Crown is set to uncover Princess Anne's affair with Andrew Parker-Bowles while he was dating Camilla - who was also being courted by Prince Charles at the time.
The new series of the acclaimed royal drama is expected to feature Anne falling for British Army Officer Parker-Bowles in the '70s, despite his on/off relationship with Camilla, then known as Camilla Shand.
Princess Anne is played by Call the Midwife star Erin Doherty, Andrew Buchan plays Parker-Bowles, Josh O'Connor is Prince Charles, and Killing Eve writer Emerald Fennell stars as Camilla.
At the time, Charles was being encouraged to 'sow his oats' by his beloved great-uncle Lord Louis Mountbatten - played by Charles Dance - when he began his courtship with Camilla. When Charles told his uncle that his intentions with Camilla were serious and that she could be 'The One', the royal family were firmly against their relationship as they believed Camilla was too heavily involved with Parker-Bowles, and they wanted to protect Charles, who remains second-in-line to the throne.
The Queen's mother arranged a private meeting with the Shands and the Parker-Bowles' to discuss the matter and resolve the 'imbroglio', and a wedding date for Camilla and Andrew Parker-Bowles was swiftly arranged.
Due to the hostility of his family towards Camilla, Charles strengthened his ties with his exiled uncle, Edward VIII, who abdicated the throne to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson. Living in France, the pair corresponded regularly through letters, in which Charles detailed his feelings for Camilla. They forged a close and sympathetic bond, despite Edward's fraught relationship with senior members of royalty.
The series intimates that Charles feared he would be ostracised like Edward if he married Camilla against his family's wishes.
Meanwhile, royal biographer Penny Junor has previously suggested that Camilla might never have struck up a relationship with Prince Charles, had Parker-Bowles not embarked on an illicit affair with his sibling.
Junor claimed Camilla planned to show her "cheating boyfriend a lesson", all of which is due to be depicted to an episode of the Netflix show.
Last year, at the Henley Literary Festival, Junor revealed that a young Camilla was not a woman be reckoned with, telling the audience: "[Camilla] was passionately in love with [Andrew] but he was a cad, he was bonking other people, some of her friends.
"There was a lovely story when she was walking through London in the evening and spotted his car parked outside the flat of a very good friend of hers. So she let the tyres down and wrote a message in lipstick on his windscreen.
"So when she was introduced to Charles and he thought she was pretty special...he thought she was a bit of alright and she thought, 'Andrew is at the moment off with Princess Anne, you know her brother, teach Andrew a lesson'. So she had a fling with Charles."
After Anne and Parker-Bowles ended their relationship, Anne married Captain Mark Phillips in 1973, which was the same year as Camilla and Parker-Bowles wed.
In 1995, Camilla and Parker-Bowles divorced, and a year later, the decorated army officer married his long-time mistress Rosemary Pitman. Charles and Camilla married in 2005.
Princess Royal and Andrew Parker-Bowles remain close friends, and they often attend the races together.
The Crown launches on Netflix on 17 November.
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