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Charles and Camilla wed |
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After enduring years of public and media criticism, even ridicule, the evident affection Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles feel for each other appeared finally to have won them a measure of acceptance from the British public. The couple wed in a modest town hall ceremony Saturday with the blessing of the queen and the Church of England.
Once married, the royals knelt beneath the towering Gothic arches ofSt. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, nervously pledging their undyinglove and confessing their "sins and wickedness" a phrase from theChurch of England's Book of Common Prayer as their vows were blessed byArchbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Thousands of royalists cheered as the newly-weds emerged arm-in-arm toa chilly breeze in the riverside town of Windsor, west of London,before heading off in a Rolls-Royce for the nearby family castle.
"He did a bit of a dirty job on Diana," said Tina Quinney, 59, one of the thousands of people lining the streets of this royal town. "But the past is the past."
"Thank you very much," Charles, 56, mouthed to the crowd as his57-year-old bride beamed beside him. There was no public kiss, however,to mirror the famous Charles and Diana moment on the balcony ofBuckingham Palace almost 25 years ago.
The queen, declined to attend the civil ceremony but was present at a service of blessing in the 1,000-year-old Windsor Castle.
After a 35-year affair spanning two failed marriages, Camilla Parker Bowles has gone from commoner to the second most senior woman in the royal family after the queen.
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