BRITAIN’s mainstream media set out a brick-by-brick case for Camilla to become Queen last night.

The Real Camilla, billed as an hour-long documentary revealing the private life of the controversial Duchess of Cornwall in her 70^th year, quickly turned into a propaganda vehicle to wipe clean the public’s memory of the treacherous, murderous love triangle of Camilla, Prince Charles and the late tragic Princess Diana.

Celebrities friends of the former Camilla Parker Bowles queued to pay their personal compliments and argue that what unfolded was both natural and morally defensible.

Indeed the bare facts suggest just that.

Camilla was as unhappily matched with Andrew Parker Bowles as Charles was with Diana.

The narrative may have crossed the line by suggesting a sexually betrayed Camilla was flung back into the arms of her ‘former’ lover yet, in purely human terms, what followed has credibility.

Few save the most religiously narrow would deny the right of Charles and Diana, unarguably a more natural and happy match, to marry once they were both divorced.

And the admirable fashion in which Camilla supports and complements Charles during his public duties today adds to the case that she should take the official title of Queen Consort if and when her husband becomes King,

Yet there’s a problem here that those who followed the full story in real time will remember – and was not really addressed in the one-sided programme.

The Royal Family is no ‘normal’ family – and therein lies the clue to what really happened.

The reunion of Charles and Camilla did not come about through heartache and fate as suggested last night but by careful and callous design.

As correctly stated, the original relationship between the Prince and the debutante was frowned upon because she was not a virgin.

And here lies a key to understanding the most important mission of the Royal Family – not to serve the country or the Commonwealth, nor find personal happiness but merely to survive.

Any marriage Charles entered into had to provide heirs to the throne. Finding a virgin of sufficient aristocratic standing was no easy task – at least in theory. The young daughters of Earl Spencer provided a rare solution and, after a dalliance with Diana’s sister Sarah, the die was cast.

Diana pointedly reported that Camilla was present on some of the handful of dates she and Charles had prior to their engagement.

The evidence suggests that not only were Charles and Diana set up in an unequal marriage but that the relationship of Camilla and Andrew was also arranged for convenience.

The20th anniversary of Diana’s death was mentioned on the programme almost as an unwelcome distraction for the modern-day couple.

But this simply can’t be airbrushed from history. Diana was brutally sacrificed in a Paris tunnel to put an end to a story that was fast getting out of hand.

As broadcast, Diana was ‘more complicated’ than initially thought and her rebellion against the Royals was becoming more and more vocal.

In conclusion, we need to take our focus away from the individuals and onto the ‘system’.

For Diana was used, abused and finally murdered for the sake of the continuation of a bizarre way of life.

As a society we have moved on from the days of King Henry VIII. The vast majority are free to choose their own partners, regardless of previous sexual history or orientation.

That is still not the case with the Monarchy.

The forthcoming marriage of Prince Harry and the divorcee Meghan Markle may hint at a more liberal approach – but don’t be fooled.

When the future of this most undemocratic of institutions is truly at stake ranks will always slam shut. And there will be those who suffer the consequences.