Queen Camilla has dedicated much of her royal career to supporting women and raising awareness on behalf of domestic violence organizations. Now, a royal biographer has shared that The Queen herself experienced an attempted sexual assault when she was just a teenager, and was forced to fight off the attacker herself.
In the new book Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street, royal expert Valentine Low recounted the terrifying ordeal experienced by Camilla when she was younger. Former prime minister Boris Johnson's communications director, Guto Harri, shared the revelation with Low, after Queen Camilla discussed the subject during a meeting at Clarence House.
"[The] serious conversation they had was about her being the victim of an attempted sexual assault when she was a schoolgirl," Low wrote, via The Sunday Times. "She was on a train going to Paddington—she was about 16, 17—and some guy was moving his hand further and further."
Low continued, "At that point Johnson had asked what happened next. She replied: 'I did what my mother taught me to. I took off my shoe and whacked him in the nuts with the heel.'"
Johnson's communications director told the royal biographer, "She was self-possessed enough when they arrived at Paddington to jump off the train, find a guy in uniform and say, 'That man just attacked me', and he was arrested.'"
Harri shared that Queen Camilla had been meeting with Johnson to discuss the opening of three new rape crisis centers in London. "I think she formally opened two out of three of them," Harri told the royal author. "Nobody asked why the interest, why the commitment. But that's what it went back to."
It would appear as though Queen Camilla's own devastating experience as a teenager might have influenced her dedication to support women's rights throughout her royal career.
