Queen Elizabeth has announced that she wants Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, to be known as Queen Consort when Prince Charles becomes King.
This ‘sincere wish’ was contained in a message marking the 70th anniversary of her reign.
A Clarence House spokesman said the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were ‘touched and honoured’.
Charles and Camilla were both divorcees when they married in 2005 in a civil marriage. Charles had previously been married to Princess Diana but they divorced in 1996, a year before she died in a car crash in Paris.
At the time of their marriage the official intention was for Camilla to be known as the Princess Consort, according to the BBC.
The Queen’s intervention means barriers to her becoming Queen have now been removed, and will allow her to have a fully-fledged royal role beside Charles.
The Queen, who is 95, is the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. She was crowned when she was 25, following the death of her father, George VI, on 6 February 1952. She has seen 14 British prime ministers occupy No 10 Downing Street.