Should Charles and Camilla get our blessing?

CHARLES and Camilla should be allowed to get married in peace. They are no different from anyone else.

Divorce is part of modern life. So why is everybody picking on two people who are very much in love, and who are very suited to each-other? What is all this furore about?

I don't blame Camilla at all for what happened with Diana. Much as I love Diana - I've got all her pictures and I think she was brilliant - she must have known what was going on between Charles and Camilla. So why did she get into it?

Most families nowadays have a marriage that doesn't work. You can't blame any one person. Charles should not have married Diana, but I think he was forced into it. He has loved Camilla all along. You can see it in their faces.

So let's allow him a bit of personal happiness at last. He hasn't had much affection in his life.

He's a lovely man and a human being just like the rest of us. I spoke to him once, at Pickering station. I asked him how he kept the snails off his hostas. He smiled and said 'Oh, it's a secret' and moved on. He wasn't allowed to stop, but he smiled at me and looked at me. He's brilliant, and he should be left alone.

It probably would help people accept the marriage if Charles gave up hopes of being king. His mother is not going to abdicate so he will be in his 60s or 70s anyway and he may as well pass the succession on to his son.

But on the other hand, he has spent his life training to be king, so why should he just give that up? He has not done anything different to most people and the way he is treated is unfair.

He and Camilla are a normal couple, and if they want to get married, who are we to say otherwise? He is in his 50s now, so he should be able to get on with what he wants to do. I have a grandson who's 20 and if I try to tell him what to do, he says 'Oh, Gran, keep your nose out'. We should do the same with Prince Charles and give him a bit of peace and quiet with the woman he loves.

No ...says Evening Press journalist Maxine Gordon

WHAT is there to celebrate in the marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles? Supporters emphasise the fact that they are truly in love and it is right that they can finally be together.

I can go along with that... but only so far.

It's difficult to summon much feeling of good will when you consider the emotional destruction that the 30-odd year love affair has wrought.

Diana wasn't the only person whose life was shattered by the love of Charles and Camilla. She famously said there were three people in her marriage. Well, there were more than that in the marriage breakdown. For starters, there were her sons, William and Harry; Camilla's husband Andrew; and her children Tom and Laura.

Of course, Diana is dead, the children are all grown up and we're all supposed to forgive and forget.

Saturday's wedding is an attempt to achieve just that. But how can we celebrate a marriage which is borne of such tragedy?

Charles and Camilla are not the first - and they won't be the last - to break one set of marriage vows then go on to make them anew with someone else.

We all make mistakes and I do not condemn anyone to stay in a marriage in which they are unhappy.

However, marriages break down for many reasons and adultery has to be one of the most depressing and heartbreaking, particularly when there are children involved.

In Charles and Camilla's case, the plea for forgiveness is all the more difficult to respond to because of the revelation that she was his first love and that when he proposed to the teenage Diana Spencer his heart belonged to another.

Such behaviour, however you look at it, is hardly admirable and we shouldn't be afraid to say so.

Had Charles been an ordinary guy and not the heir to the throne, it may have been easier to forgive. Or at least forget. For ultimately, why would we care?

But he ain't an ordinary guy. He's the Prince of Wales and our future king, the number two in a royal family which embodies the outdated belief that wealth, status and privilege is a right of birth and not a reward for endeavour. That people born with blue blood are better than the rest of us.

And if you buy into the principle of hereditary monarchy, it surely follows that you expect the royal family to behave better than us ordinary folk.

For that reason, Charles can marry Camilla on Saturday, but I cannot give my blessing.

Moreover, he should never be king. He is not worthy.

The royal wedding has been hit by a series of hitches, but is Charles and Camilla's marriage jinxed or is a happier future on the cards? Maxine Gordon consults York-based astrologer Jonathan Cainer.

SEVERAL phrases spring to mind to sum up the pending nuptials of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, but one seems particularly apt: If it can go wrong, it will go wrong.

You would have to be immune to superstition to believe a happy ever after beckons for the bride and groom.

In the eight weeks since the wedding announcement, the couple have hit more obstacles than the Grand National course at Aintree, which is having to delay the start of this year's race because of the wedding at Windsor on Saturday.

It's the latest in a long list of hitches to have beset the couple, from having to change the original venue and face queries about the legality of the union and its constitutional consequences, to coping with the snub of all snubs from the Queen, who will not attend the civil marriage ceremony.

Then just when it couldn't get worse, it did. The couple had to move the wedding from this Friday to Saturday because the date clashed with the funeral of Pope John Paul II.

Surely nothing else can go wrong?

Unfortunately, according to celebrated astrologer Jonathan Cainer, the couple's woes are far from over. Cainer, who writes for the Daily Mail and runs the Museum of Psychic Experience in Stonegate, York, said Charles has picked about the worst time possible to get married.

"Charles married Diana under an eclipse, which any half-decent astrologer would tell you was a damn foolish thing to do," said Cainer.

"Diana died under an eclipse and Charles was about to marry Camilla under an eclipse but the Pope's great blessing has been to force him to shift his marriage by 24 hours.

"This probably means that the wedding won't have any fatal consequences, but Saturday is still a very dodgy day for the royal wedding because Charles and Camilla will be getting married under a 'Void Of Course Moon'.

"Basically, what it means traditionally is that things that happen then don't tend to weather well. Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson were married under a Void Of Course Moon.

"So Charles picked about the worst day for his wedding and by chance has now moved it to the second worst day."

Projecting further ahead, the prospects for Charles are equally portentous, adds Cainer.

"We can safely confer that Charles will never take the throne, because of the way he is marrying Camilla, the timing, and other factors in his own chart which have always looked dodgy."

Cainer predicts that the succession will pass from the Queen to Prince William.

"The only throne Charles will sit on will be the one in his bathroom," he said.

On the plus side, Cainer says Charles and Camilla should have a happy marriage.

"Charles loves Camilla and Camilla loves Charles and this wedding is born out of nothing but love. As such, they will be very happy together."

It could all have been very different, stresses Cainer, had Charles and other royals enlisted the help and advice of a court astrologer in the way their ancestors did.

For millennia, court astrologers have helped kings, queens and princes pick the dates of important occasions and ceremonies.

Cainer said: "Charles, very sadly, doesn't feel the need to employ a court astrologer. But he has to be careful. The idea that you can be born to a position of high privilege is a superstition in itself. In abandoning the tradition of a court astrologer, the royal family have put themselves in a very perilous position."

What's the big hitch?

Charles and Camilla have faced almost as many hurdles in the run-up to their wedding as will confront runners in Saturday's Grand National. Here is the countdown to the Royal Wedding:

February 10

Things get off on the wrong foot when Clarence House is 'bounced' into announcing the engagement after learning the London Evening Standard is about to break the news. The wedding is set for April 8 - a civil ceremony in Windsor Castle followed by a blessing by the Archbishop of Canterbury

February 14

A BBC Panorama investigation reveals the wedding could be illegal and may require a change in the law. Apparently, the 1836 Marriage Act which made civil marriages possible specifically excluded Royals

February 17

The plans for a civil wedding in Windsor Castle are abandoned after it becomes clear granting a licence would entail the castle being open to anyone who wanted to get married there for the next three years. The wedding is set for Windsor Guildhall instead

February 21

The Government confirms the marriage will see Camilla becoming queen when Charles accedes to the throne. Knowing how unpopular this would be, Clarence House insists Camilla could choose not to take the title

February 22

Charles will not have a best man, it is announced. His brothers Andrew and Edward filled the role at his first wedding

February 23

Lord Chancellor Lord Faulkner declares the wedding will be legal after all, citing the Human Rights Act. The Queen announces she will not attend the civil ceremony - widely seen as a snub

April 2

The Pope dies. Clarence House insists the wedding will still go ahead.

April 4

The wedding is postponed by a day as a 'mark of respect' to the Pope. That sees it clash with the Grand National, which is put back by 25 minutes.

Updated: 09:24 Thursday, April 07, 2005