Why Queen Camilla's family always called her “Lorraine”

Because the family of Queen Camilla he nicknamed her «Lorraine» before his accession to the throne, to the great annoyance (it seems) of King Charles? It's a play on words.

As per the rich tradition of cheeky nicknames within the royal family (think One Pint Willy [«Willy da una pinta», a indicare che non regge molto l’alcol, ndr] for the Prince William), according to a forthcoming book focusing on Charles and his accession to the throne, Camilla had one of her own: Lorraine.

In The Making of a King: King Charles III and the Modern Monarchythe author Robert Hardman reveals that, before Camilla sat on the throne alongside Charles, her family coined this jokey nickname, a play on words on “La Reine”, which in French means “the queen”. Her nickname was therefore a nod to her place within the royal family, as well as to the future she might have had. Camilla reportedly found it funny. The then Prince Charles? Not so.

«[Camilla] always saw the funny side of things, even if Prince Charles didn't think so,” a friend of Hardman reveals in the book, according to the Daily Mail. Of course, she did indeed become queen in the end, albeit after years of debate over which title to bestow on the future monarch's second wife when the time came.

Interviewed for the book, Camilla's sister, Annabel Elliotcalled her sister's new position “totally surreal” for her family and said to do «I had a lot of trouble making her bow. And call her “Your Majesty”? I can not do it”. “She is an amazing mother and grandmother,” Elliot said of Camilla in her private life. «She IS very, very pragmatic. All our children grew up together. She's almost like we're one family… so when she's with us, she goes back to being the same as always. In short, otherwise he wouldn't get away with it!”.

“There's quite a bit of irreverence: 'For us you're not the queen,' and so on,” he added. “There's a lot of that, thank God.”

In the book, others also noted Camilla's great sense of humor, such as the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunakwho called it “absolutely hilarious.”

“During dinner it was hard trying to keep the volume down because we were having so much fun,” she said of a weekend spent with the royal family at Balmoral.

Another friend of hers, la Marchioness of Lansdowne, said that Camilla “has a great talent, which comes out very easily.” “She knows when to wink at a bishop, but also when not to wink, which, in my opinion, is a rather endearing quality,” she said.