10 April 2005 Sunday 30 Safar 1426 Vicar files objection to Charles wedding WINDSOR, April 9: An Anglican cleric filed a last-minute objection on Saturday to Britain’s royal wedding, maintaining that Prince Charles, divorced from the late Princess Diana, could not remarry while heir to the British throne. Father Paul Williamson, 56, a Church of England vicar at St George’s Church in west London, was the first person to arrive at civic offices in Windsor which opened specifically to register protests against the marriage. Williamson’s objection, along with two others also filed, were later rejected by Dennis Roberts, deputy registrar general of the local council, the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. The vicar’s complaint was based mainly on the grounds that Queen Elizabeth II had broken her coronation oath to preserve the doctrine of the Church of England by consenting to the wedding of the two divorcees outside the church. Under Britain’s constitution, the monarch serves as Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The vicar said he also wanted to argue that both the queen and Prime Minister Tony Blair had failed to seek permission from the Commonwealth, the confederation of former British colonial possessions, which he claimed was also a requirement in law. —AFP

© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2005