Wedding Bells For Charles, Camilla
Prince Charles is to marry his partner Camilla Parker Bowles, the prince's office said Thursday.
The Prince of Wales and Parker Bowles will marry on Friday, April 8, in a private civil ceremony at Windsor Castle. Camilla will use the title Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall after the marriage.
Prince Charles said Thursday he is "very excited" about his engagement to his longtime lover Camilla Parker Bowles.
The prince was congratulated during a regularly scheduled visit to London's financial district.
"Thank you very much, you're so kind." he said. "I am very excited."
Charles and Camilla have been a couple, officially and unofficially, for more than 15 years, reports CBS News Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer. Recently Parker Bowles has even begun appearing as his companion at formal events.
"The wedding will be a largely private occasion for family and friends. There will be a civil ceremony in Windsor Castle," said a spokesman for the prince. "There will subsequently be a service of prayer and dedication in St. George's Chapel at which the Archbishop of Canterbury will preside."
The couple has the blessing of his mother. Queen Elizabeth II says she is very happy that her son and Camilla Parker Bowles will marry.
"You have to have permission from mum to get married. That's the protocol," Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty magazine, said on CBS News' The Early Show.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is adding his congratulations, and says he is "delighted" at the news of the impending nuptials.
"It's very happy news and when the Cabinet heard it this morning they sent their congratulations and good wishes on behalf of the whole government," said Blair. "We all wish them every happiness for their future together."
Charles was previously married to Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. She was divorced from Charles when she died.
Charles and Camilla met when the prince was just a student, over 30 years ago, and continued an on-and-off relationship through most of their adult lives - even during his marriage to Diana, who loathed Camilla as a rival.
"There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded," Diana said in a 1995 TV interview, a year before she and Charles divorced.
In 1994, Prince Charles admitted in a TV documentary that he had strayed from his marriage vows, but insisted the infidelity happened only after the marriage was "irretrievably broken down, us both having tried."
In the years since Diana's death, the prince's office said many times that he and Camilla had no plans to marry, but in recent years she has been seen more and more with Charles - so much so that last June, the former Archbishop of Canterbury said publicly that he thought they should wed.
"He is heir to the throne and he loves her," said former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, in an interview last summer with The Times of London. "The natural thing is that they should get married."
That's what Diana would have wanted, said Seward.
"The very last year of Diana's life she'd come to terms with Camilla and she said 'I wish Charles would make an honest woman of her,' and now he has," the royal-watcher said.
The Church of England has stayed neutral on a marriage between Parker Bowles and Charles, who divorced Princess Diana before her death in 1997. It's a sensitive issue because Charles would be the supreme governor of the church if he succeeds to the throne, and some Anglicans remain opposed to remarriage of divorcees.
The Church of England recently revised its rules to allow divorcees to remarry in church in some cases. Until the change, the two could not have married in church, as her former husband Andrew is still alive.
"The Christian faith is all about forgiveness. We all make mistakes," said Lord Carey, who has spoken sympathetically of Charles in the past and had Charles and Camilla as guests for dinner, to combat what he felt was her demonization by the media.
The former archbishop has described Charles as more sinned against than sinning in his marriage to Diana. He said the late princess was "a very fallible lady and very angry about the relationship and yes, I do believe, on balance, that she was a little more cunning at using the media than Charles."
Last year, a poll indicated that more Britons support Prince Charles marrying Camilla Parker Bowles than oppose it. Thirty-two percent of respondents to the Populus poll said they would support Charles if he remarried, while 29 percent were opposed. Thirty-eight percent said they didn't care and 2 percent had no opinion.
"I was surprised because he has everything that he could possibly need. He's looked after, he's cared for. Camilla is his hostess. Did he need to make the final step to marriage? Obviously, he did," Seward told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "I think if Diana was alive he probably would haven't done so."
