Gossip: Charles paid Camilla's sister £1.2M to cover his adultery for years

Soon after Camilla became HRH the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duchy decided to go into the holiday cottage-letting business, the first commissions were on their way to Annabel.


One long-time family friend spikily described the work put her way as ‘just a few crumbs from her big sister’s table’. But this week, amid renewed assorted cries of cronyism and nepotism, it emerged that the crumbs have grown into a loaf.

Indeed, in the past eight years, Annabel Elliot has received almost £1.2 million from the 700-year-old Duchy for ‘interior design services’.

In the past two years alone, ‘fees and commission’ have amounted to some £210,000 — not bad with the country going through lean times. Her earnings from this source remain a substantial part of the recent income of Annabel Elliot Ltd, which for some years has been run from a small industrial unit near Salisbury, Wiltshire, rented from the council for £350 a month.

Discreet: Annabel Elliot allowed Charles and Camilla to have trysts at her Dorset home

Because it is classed as a small business it is not required to submit full profit-loss accounts. But publicly available figures show that, just before the Duchy work began, her company’s liabilities exceeded assets by £54,000. Figures for the last financial year show assets of £227,000.

Let us be clear about one thing: Annabel Elliot is known to be good at her work. She says she always tries to mirror the taste of her clients. That duck-egg blue in Charles’s Welsh cottage is the basis of the theme because it happens to be Camilla’s favourite colour.

But while Britain has many talented interior designers, Annabel is the only one mentioned in the accounts of the Duchy, which funds Charles’s multi-million pound lifestyle and last year paid him some £19 million. So why do no other interior designers get a look in?

The Duchy’s answer comes directly from the Prince’s spokesperson at Clarence House, and is crystal clear: ‘The Prince is very happy with Mrs Elliot’s work — she’s very experienced and does a good job. And as we have said many times before, the Duchy does not have to put the work out to tender because it is a private estate.’
Which is the sound of a door slamming shut on the hopes of others.

Could the reason be that he is indebted, in a way that he could never adequately repay, to his sister-in-law Annabel for her help during his most difficult years while he was still married to Diana.

The two sisters have always been incredibly close, as was obvious as they sat together the other day in the royal box at Wimbledon.

Theirs is the easy intimacy of sisters who know each other’s secrets. Certainly, there is practically nothing that Annabel — 18 months younger, and always seen as the prettier and brainier of the two — does not know about the tumultuous years of her sister’s infamous affair with Charles.