18 Royals Who Quietly Refuse to Call Camilla âQueenâ â Inside a Deeply Divided Monarchy
Officially, she is Queen Camilla.
But behind the velvet curtains and polished smiles, not everyone in the royal family is willing to follow that script.
From senior cousins of Queen Elizabeth to the late Prince Philipâs inner circle, from Harry in exile to younger Windsors raised in Dianaâs shadowâthere is a quiet, stubborn resistance to Camillaâs new status. For some, itâs about loyalty. For others, tradition. For a few, itâs raw emotional history that never healed.

These arenât distant critics. These are blood relatives.
And many of them, according to insiders, still avoid using the word âQueenâ when they speak about Camillaâespecially in private.
Hereâs the breakdown of who they are, and why the crown on Camillaâs head will never sit easily in their hearts.
1ïžâŁ Prince Harry â Dianaâs Son Who Wonât Forget
Prince Harry has been the most openly critical voice when it comes to Camillaâs rise.
In his memoir Spare, he describes her as âdangerous,â accuses her of trading stories to the press, and makes it clear he sees her as part of the machinery that sacrificed his familyâs privacy for image. For Harry, Camilla is inextricably tied to the pain his mother endured.
Yes, he grew up with her in the family. Yes, she became his fatherâs wife.
But accepting her as âQueenâ is a step he seems unwilling to take. For Harry, the title doesnât just describe a roleâit rewrites history. And history, in his eyes, still belongs to Diana.
2ïžâŁ Princess Anne â Loyal to Her Mother, Not the New Order
Princess Anne is the embodiment of duty and no-nonsense tradition. Fiercely loyal to Queen Elizabeth II, she reportedly refuses to use the title âQueenâ for Camilla in private conversations.
For Anne, this isnât personal dramaâitâs principle.
She represents the generation that watched her mother reign for 70 years and hold the crown with iron discipline. The idea of Charlesâs controversial second wife sitting in that same placeâeven with the âconsortâ nuanceâdoesnât sit easily with her sense of continuity.
Anne is outwardly polite and professional. But behind the scenes, her refusal to adapt her language says everything about where her heart still lies: with her motherâs reign and the monarchy as it used to be.
3ïžâŁ Prince Andrew â Clinging to the Old World
Prince Andrew may be disgraced and sidelined, but his opinions inside the family still carry emotional weight.
Insiders say he remains aligned with his late motherâs view of the crown and is reluctant to fully embrace Camillaâs elevation. Having watched Queen Elizabeth hold the institution together through scandal after scandal, Andrew reportedly sees the new order under Charles and Camilla as a break from the world he once knew.
He has his own crisesâbut on this issue, heâs said to stand squarely with tradition.
4ïžâŁ Beatrice & Eugenie â Still in Dianaâs Shadow
Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie grew up in the era where Diana was still âtheâ Princess of Wales in the public imagination. They watched their uncleâs marriage explode across headlines and saw how their mother Sarah Ferguson was treated by the institution.
For Beatrice, especially, insiders suggest that she still instinctively sees Diana as the rightful Queen Consortâthe woman who should have stood beside Charles on the throne in another universe.
Eugenie, close to Harry and Meghan and more openly sympathetic to the âoutsiderâ camp, is said to share his discomfort with Camillaâs elevated role. Their reluctance to use the Queen title isnât just etiquetteâitâs emotional loyalty to a woman whose legacy defined their childhood.
5ïžâŁ Zara Tindall & Lady Louise â The Quiet Traditionalists
Zara Tindall, Princess Anneâs daughter, is famously relaxed and down-to-earth. But when it comes to titles and hierarchy, she often mirrors her motherâs traditional instincts. While publicly cordial with Camilla, she reportedly avoids calling her âQueenâ in private.
Lady Louise Windsor, granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth, grew up in extraordinary proximity to her grandmotherâs reign. For her, âThe Queenâ meant one personâand one person only. Sources suggest she finds the transition to Camilla as Queen Consort emotionally jarring, and quietly resists the language shift out of respect for her grandmotherâs memory.
Their silence isnât loud, but itâs firm.
6ïžâŁ Sarah Ferguson â Fergieâs Loyalty to Diana
Sarah âFergieâ Ferguson knows what itâs like to fall out of favor with the royal machine. As Andrewâs ex-wife and a once-controversial figure herself, her relationship with Camilla has always carried an awkward edge.

Despite appearing cordial in public, Fergie has long been closely tied to Dianaâs memory and reportedly struggles with the idea of Camilla wearing the crown that might once have been Dianaâs.
Her refusal to use the title âQueenâ in private is widely seen as a mix of personal history, quiet rebellion, and unshakable loyalty to her late friend.
7ïžâŁ Senior Cousins & Old-Guard Royals â The Guardians of Tradition
Then come the older generation: the Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra, the Duke of Gloucester, David Armstrong-Jones (Earl of Snowdon), and others like the Countess of St Andrews and the Earl of Ulster.
These are the royals who:
- Grew up in the long shadow of George VI and Elizabeth II
- See the monarchy as an unbroken line of strict tradition
- View titles not as PR tools, but as sacred symbols of continuity
For many of them, accepting Camilla as âQueenâ feels like rewriting the story too far. Their reluctance isnât necessarily personal animosityâitâs a refusal to let go of the old rules and the old order, especially when they feel Dianaâs suffering has never fully been reckoned with.
Princess Michael of Kent, with her own aristocratic background and strong views, is also said to keep her distance from Camillaâs new title, preferring silence to endorsement.
8ïžâŁ The Late Prince Philip â A Ghostly âNoâ
Though Prince Philip passed away before Camilla was officially styled Queen, his reported opinions during his life are well-known: pragmatic, blunt, and not always soft around the edges.
He was deeply loyal to Dianaâs sons and sharply protective of the monarchyâs integrity. Those who knew him say he found the entire CharlesâCamillaâDiana saga disastrous for the crownâs imageâand itâs hard to imagine him casually embracing Camilla as âQueenâ with the same ease he treated his wife as sovereign.

Heâs not here to speak, but his legacy of skepticism still hangs over the new configuration.
9ïžâŁ Sophie & Edward â Polite on Camera, Torn in Private
Prince Edward and his wife Sophie, now Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, are masters of quiet professionalism. They get along with almost everyone; they carry out duties without drama.
But their loyalty to Queen Elizabeth is absolute.
Sophie, especially close to the late Queen, is rumored to avoid the âQueen Camillaâ phrasing in private out of deep respect for her mother-in-lawâs unmatched reign. Edward, the Queenâs youngest son, is believed to feel similarly: respectful toward Camilla, but emotionally anchored to the world in which âThe Queenâ meant his mother.
A Crown No One Can Force Into Their Hearts
On paper, there is no debate.
Charles is King. Camilla is Queen Consort. The titles are set.
But inside the family, titles arenât just printed on letterheadsâtheyâre loaded with grief, memory, loyalty, and old scars.
For some, using âQueen Camillaâ feels like acceptance.
For others, it feels like betrayalâof Diana, of Elizabeth, of the monarchy they believed in.
And thatâs the real story: not just a divided palace, but a royal family still haunted by the past, even as the new Queen walks the corridors wearing a crown many of them will never truly acknowledge.

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