Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles
Camilla Parker Bowles and Prince Charles look at each other as they reopen the newly-renovated Edwardian community hall The Strand Hall during day three of a visit to Wales on July 4, 2018 in Builth Wells, Wales. Getty Images/Chris Jackson

Camilla Parker Bowles once broke Prince Charles’ heart.

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have endured the criticism they faced following Princess Diana’s statement saying that “there were three of us in this marriage.” Many slammed the couple for their illicit affair and Camilla was branded as the heir’s mistress. However, despite their enduring love, she once put the heir in anguish.

In Penny Junor’s 2017 book “The Duchess: The Untold Story,” the royal biographer shared how Prince Charles and Camilla’s romance ended and left the Prince of Wales in pain. According to the author, when Prince Charles was thousands of miles away in the West Indies in March 1973, Andrew proposed to Camilla and she said “yes.”

Camilla wrote Prince Charles to inform him about her engagement and “it broke his heart.” Prince William and Prince Harry’s dad was in so much pain and he expressed it in a letter.

“He fired off anguished letters to his nearest and dearest,” Junor wrote.

“It seemed to him particularly cruel, he wrote in one letter, that after ‘such a blissful, peaceful and mutual happy relationship’, fate had decreed that it should last a mere six months.”

Junor added that Prince Charles had “no one to go back to England.” However, he eased himself by writing, “I suppose the feeling of emptiness will pass eventually.”

Prince Charles never really got over Camilla. A week before her wedding, he wrote another letter in an attempt to stop her from tying the knot with Andrew, but the wedding went ahead.

In the same publication, Junor said that Prince Charles was “falling in love“ with Camilla who “was in love with Andrew.” The Duchess of Cornwall reportedly wanted to be the wife of a handsome cavalry officer and had no intentions to be the Princess of Wales or Queen.

Camilla was furious when she learned that Andrew was also seeing Prince Charles’ sister Princess Anne. The two reportedly had a “torrid” affair. Andrew was never nice to Camilla, but she remained “stubbornly determined” to marry him.

Camilla’s dad also preferred Andrew over Prince Charles. In fact, it was Camilla’s father and Andrew’s brother who worked together to pressure Andrew into proposing to her. They published an engagement notice in a newspaper to put pressure on Andrew and it worked.