Newlyweds Charles And Camilla Take To Scottish Highlands On Honeymoon
WINDSOR, England : Britain’s Prince Charles and his new bride Camilla began a honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands a day after a regal wedding celebration made official their decades-old love affair.
They arrived at Birkhall, the residence on the royal Balmoral Estate left to the prince by the Queen Mother, for a week to 10 days of retreat in the country home they have often visited together.
The Scottish calm comes in contrast to a day of wedding celebrations, civil and religious, for Britain’s heir to the throne and his true love whom he first met in 1970.
The private civil ceremony and televised religious blessing, broadcast around the world, drew a cheering crowd of 20,000 into the streets of Windsor, west of London, although it was still low-key compared with the gala wedding of Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, watched in London by 600,000.
Charles, 56, and Camilla, 57, first exchanged vows at Windsor’s 17th-century Guildhall before only 28 guests.
Then the couple, illicit lovers during their prior marriages, took vows of fidelity before a congregation of nearly 800 — including Charles’s parents Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip — in the chapel at Windsor Castle.
In a Church of England service of blessing in Saint George’s Chapel, Charles and Camilla were asked by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams if they resolved to be faithful to each other, “forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live”.
They replied: “That is my resolve, with the help of God.”
The two also acknowledged “our manifold sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed… We do earnestly repent.”
The newlyweds, who endured a near-comical series of mishaps in the months of preparations for the wedding, were treated to a rare show of public warmth for the union.
Crowds waving Union Jack flags lined picturesque streets under blue, chilly skies to catch a glimpse of the two, while another 2,000 well-wishers were chosen to gather inside the castle grounds and a lucky few even got to exchange words and handshakes with the couple.
After the sober religious ceremony, the mood lightened at a reception in the castle, with guests ranging from continental European royals to pop stars and actors tucking into 16,900 canapes plus Welsh fruit cake.
The queen, serious at the chapel, later roused guests to laughter with a joke, by offering a toast first to the winner of Saturday’s Grand National horse race and only then to her son and new daughter-in-law.
One guest said the queen — who had earlier been described as “snubbing” Charles by deciding to skip his civil ceremony — was “very bubbly and chatty”, while another praised the prince’s touching toast afterward, saying “people were crying”.
Julie Cleverdon, who runs one of Charles’s charities, Business in the Communities, gushed over the affair. “There was a fantastic number of marvellous hats,” she told AFP.
Guests included Camilla’s cuckolded ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles, a former British army officer. He was seen smiling and chatting animatedly.
After the reception, the couple drove off in a dark Bentley decorated by Princes William and Harry with balloons and “Just married!” scrawl, en route to their honeymoon.
Charles and Camilla, who first met in 1970 and have been on-and-off lovers across the decades, have effectively lived as man and wife since the late 1990s, and now often appear together at official functions.
But many still hold the practical, country-loving Camilla responsible for the break-up of Charles’s marriage to the glamorous Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997, a year after her divorce from Charles.
Saturday’s wedding, originally planned for Friday, was hastily rescheduled in order not to clash with the Vatican funeral of Pope John Paul II attended by Charles and by Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the guests at Saturday’s blessing.
Other gremlins to plague the wedding plans include a forced change of venue, a volley of legal objections — all rejected — and the queen’s miss of the civil ceremony.
A tabloid newspaper also exposed security flaws at Windsor Castle by driving in a fake bomb, and even on Saturday, Charles was embarrassed by newspaper photos showing him shaking hands at the pope’s funeral with the much-criticised president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
But fears of protests in Windsor on wedding day by hardcore Diana fans, anti-royalists and hoaxsters proved unfounded. A thousand people even braved late afternoon chills to wave the couple farewell.
Camilla, now officially Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall, won widespread praise for her outfits — first an ivory-cream dress and matching coat designed by Robinson Valentine, then a full-length silver-blue silk ensemble.
Upon her arrival in Scotland, she was dressed in a crimson coat trimmed in the Rothesay tartan corresponding to her and Charles’s Scottish titles, the duke and duchess of Rothesay.
The newlyweds will interrupt their honeymoon for a few public events, including a church service on Sunday in nearby Crathie Kirk, and the opening of a park in Ballater on Thursday.
- AFP
Powered by Channel News Asia