Charles and Camilla quiet and formal in Washington

By Deborah Zabarenko

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Twenty years after Princess Diana
upstaged her husband with a White House dance with John
Travolta, Britain’s Prince Charles and his new wife Camilla
made a quieter impact in the U.S. capital on a visit that ended
on Friday.

“I think they did splendidly,” said Eleanor Herman, author
of “Sex with Kings,” at the end of the royal couple’s three-day
Washington visit. “I think that Camilla has a very hard act to
follow in Diana. Diana was like a Hollywood superstar and we
Americans really go for that sort of thing.”

Herman found Camilla better suited to the role of Charles’
royal consort than Diana, whose glamour made her a favorite
with Washingtonians, notably in 1985, when images of the
princess dominated coverage of the couple’s trip.

“She doesn’t steal the show from poor Charles the way Diana
did,” Herman said by telephone. “She’s got a good figure, great
legs, but her style is more sedate.”

The Washington Post’s fashion columnist gave Camilla
restrained approval for her ever-changing but decidedly
unflashy wardrobe.

“Camilla took an aesthetic bullet,” the Post’s Robin Givhan
wrote of the duchess’ look for a White House dinner. “She
looked plain and unremarkable — except for those magnificent
jewels … — ensuring that she did not distract from the
prince in his nicely tailored tux.”

On their last day in Washington Charles and Camilla, the
Duchess of Cornwall, laid a wreath at the U.S. World War Two
memorial on the grassy mall that runs through the heart of
Washington and then calling at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

This was in keeping with a round of subdued and formal
events that served to introduce Camilla to the U.S. capital on
their first U.S. tour as husband and wife.

At the war memorial, Charles wore a dark suit adorned with
medals, shaking hands with the hundred or so veterans gathered
for the ceremony. Camilla moved through the line of veterans a
few steps after her husband, her wide-brimmed black-and-white
hat visible through the crowd.

In Washington the couple also visited a public boarding
school, where the prince planted an oak tree, and visited the
National Institutes of Health for a seminar on osteoporosis,
the disease that afflicted Camilla’s mother and grandmother.

They also had lunch and dinner at the White House and a
reception at the British ambassador’s residence.

The Washington leg of the trip followed a day in New York
City. From Washington, the couple was headed to New Orleans to
survey hurricane damage and reconstruction, and then to San
Francisco. Their U.S. tour ends November 8.