The Duchess of Cornwall is the daughter of Major Bruce Middleton Hope Shand and the Hon Rosalind Maud Shand (nee Cubitt).

She was born Camilla Rosemary Shand on 17 July 1947 at King’s College Hospital, London, the eldest of three children.

Her Royal Highness has a sister, Annabel Elliot, and a brother, Mark Shand.

Her parents, Major Shand and the Hon Rosalind Cubitt, the daughter of the 3rd Baron Ashcombe, married on 2 January 1946 at St Paul’s, Knightsbridge. After the birth of their children, the Shand family lived in East Sussex from 1951 onwards.

Major Shand, MC and Bar, was Vice Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex and Master of the South Down Hounds for 19 years. He died on Sunday 11 June 2006 aged 89 at his home in Dorset.

Mrs Rosalind Shand was 72 when she died in 1994 as a result of osteoporosis. The Duchess's grandmother had died from the same condition eight years earlier. The Duchess is now President of the National Osteoporosis Society, which aims to raise awareness of the brittle bone disease.

The Duchess was first educated at Dumbrells School, a co-ed school in Sussex, and then attended Queen’s Gate School in South Kensington.

She also attended Mon Fertile finishing school in Switzerland and studied at the Institut Britannique in Paris.

Click here to visit The Duchess of Cornwall's official website.