Duchess of Cornwall rides wave of popularity as public warms to idea of ‘Queen Camilla’
The Duchess of Cornwall is on track to win the support of a majority of the public this year in a boost to hopes that she will one day be accepted as "Queen".
The Duchess, whose popularity has risen steadily since her marriage to the Prince of Wales in 2005, is enjoying her most positive public opinion ratings in a decade. Her support has increased by six percentage points over the last 10 years.
It leaves her set to break the barrier of half the population embracing her role if an expected swell of support for the Royal family around the Queen's Platinum Jubilee comes to pass in the summer.
At the time of her marriage to the Prince of Wales, the palace said she would be styled as "Princess Consort" when her husband was King, in the same way she chooses to use her Duchess title rather than "Princess of Wales".
In recent years, royal watchers predicted that this idea would be quietly forgotten when the time comes, with aides hoping the public will accept "Queen Camilla".
As the wife of a King, she would be a Queen Consort rather than a Queen Regnant – a monarch who reigns in her own right – with a source emphasising on Friday that the word "consort" would always be used. Clarence House declined to comment.
According to a YouGov survey, the popularity of the Prince and Duchess rose over the last three months studied, until November.
Between August and the end of November, the Prince's rating increased from 54 per cent favourability to 60 per cent. That is thought to be partly a result of his appearances at the G20 and the Cop26 summit, where he made speeches about climate change.
It was the largest increase in popularity among the Royal family over that period, and his highest rating in a decade since the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, during which he charmed the crowd by addressing the Queen on stage as "Mummy".
The Jubilee also saw the Duchess's popularity increase as general good feeling towards the Royal family rose.
The following year that boost subsided before the Duchess dropped to a low of 33 per cent after the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 2017, but the last five years have seen her steadily build popularity again.
Prince Charles is understood to want his second wife to be known as Queen Camilla, and when asked on US television in 2010 whether she would become Queen, he replied: "That's... well, we'll see, won't we? That could be."
In 2018, Clarence House sparked speculation that the "Princess Consort" agreement no longer stands after staff quietly removed a statement about her future name from its website FAQs, claiming the public no longer asks the question.
The YouGov polling will be seen as a boost to the next generation of the Royal family as the Queen remains on light duties following a period of ill-health, but their ratings remain significantly lower than those of the monarch and the Cambridges.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex's ratings have Prince Harry at 39 per cent and Meghan at 27. The Duke of York attracts just eight per cent positivity.
The Princess Royal, regularly named among the hardest-working members of the Royal family, has a 68 per cent approval rating and is the fourth most popular after the Queen and the Cambridges.
The Queen remains the most popular, with an 83 per cent positive rating, followed by the Duke of Cambridge at 80 per cent and the Duchess of Cambridge at 77.
