Duchess of Cornwall

The Duchess of Cornwall is the title held by the wife of the Duke of Cornwall. Duke of Cornwall is a non-hereditary peerage held by the British Sovereign's eldest son and heir.

The current Duchess of Cornwall is Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (the former Camilla Parker Bowles), since her 9 April 2005 marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales.

Prior to their marriage, the title was normally used only in Cornwall since customarily the Sovereign's eldest son and heir is created Prince of Wales and his wife is styled the Princess of Wales, and it is those names that are typically used to refer to them. In Scotland the couple use the title Duke and Duchess of Rothesay.

Since the title of Duke of Cornwall can be held only by an heir-apparent who is also the eldest son of the monarch, no woman can be Duchess of Cornwall in her own right. However, this may change now that proposals to change the rules of succession are completed.

History

The first Duchess of Cornwall was Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent", who, in October 1361, married Edward, the Black Prince.

Cornwall

Cornwall (/ˈkɔːrnwɔːl/ or /ˈkɔːrnwəl/;Cornish: Kernow, [ˈkɛɹnɔʊ]) is a county in England.

Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of 536,000 and covers an area of 3,563 km² (1,376 sq mi). The administrative centre, and only city in Cornwall, is Truro, although the town of Falmouth has the largest population for a civil parish and the conurbation of Camborne, Pool and Redruth has the highest total population.

Cornwall forms the westernmost part of the south-west peninsula of the island of Great Britain, and a large part of the Cornubian batholith is within Cornwall. This area was first inhabited in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. It continued to be occupied by Neolithic and then Bronze Age peoples, and later (in the Iron Age) by Brythons with distinctive cultural relations to neighbouring Wales and Brittany. There is little evidence that Roman rule was effective west of Exeter and few Roman remains have been found. Cornwall was the home of a division of the Dumnonii tribe – whose tribal centre was in the modern county of Devon – known as the Cornovii, separated from the Brythons of Wales after the Battle of Deorham, often coming into conflict with the expanding English kingdom of Wessex before King Athelstan in AD 936 set the boundary between English and Cornish at the high water mark of the eastern bank of the River Tamar. From the early Middle Ages, British language and culture was apparently shared by Brythons trading across both sides of the Channel, evidenced by the corresponding high medieval Breton kingdoms of Domnonée and Cornouaille and the Celtic Christianity common to both territories.

Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson, June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962) was an American actress and model. Famous for playing "dumb blonde" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s, emblematic of the era's attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962. She continues to be considered a major popular culture icon.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and married for the first time at the age of sixteen. While working in a factory as part of the war effort in 1944, she met a photographer and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to two short-lived film contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox (1946–47) and Columbia Pictures (1948). After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in 1951. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photos before becoming a star, but rather than damaging her career, the story increased interest in her films.

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, GCVO CSM (Camilla Rosemary; née Shand, previously Parker Bowles; born 17 July 1947), is the second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, who is the eldest child and heir apparent of Queen Elizabeth II. Instead of using the title Princess of Wales, she is styled through her husband's secondary designation as Duchess of Cornwall because of the strong association of the primary title with his first wife, Diana. In Scotland, she is known as the Duchess of Rothesay.

Camilla was born into a gentry family as the eldest child of Major Bruce Shand and his wife, the Honourable Rosalind Cubitt, the daughter of British aristocrat Roland Cubitt, 3rd Baron Ashcombe. She was raised in East Sussex and South Kensington, and was educated in England, Switzerland and France. Subsequently, she worked for different firms based in central London, most notably the decorating firm Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler. In 1973, Camilla married British Army officer Andrew Parker Bowles, with whom she has two children and five grandchildren. They divorced in 1995.