When the Princess Royal's son, Peter Phillips, marries his Canadian fiancee, Autumn Kelly, at St George's chapel in Windsor in May, he will give up any hope of being crowned king of England."Peter will renounce his place in the line of succession," says Canon Ivor Smith-Cameron, a former chaplain to the Queen.
"Given that he has slipped down the line after the birth of Prince Edward's son, I'm sure that he is happy to agree to this."
Her Majesty's eldest grandson, who is 11th in line to the throne, has been forced to make the decision because Autumn was baptised a Catholic.
It is a provision of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which enshrined the Protestant ascendancy, that monarchs and their heirs are forbidden to become or even marry Catholics.
"My understanding is that although they are marrying in an Anglican church, Miss Kelly will have a Catholic priest present at the wedding," says Canon Smith-Cameron.
"This will ensure that the marriage is recognised by the Catholic Church. I don't know of any precedents for this in the Royal Family, but there are plenty of precedents for this happening elsewhere, such as in the Guards' chapel."
After the couple's engagement was announced last summer, Autumn's mother, Kitty, a divorcee, authorised the Church to disclose that her 31-year-old daughter had been baptised a Catholic and was proud of her religion.
Peter, 30, whose father, Capt Mark Phillips, divorced Princess Anne in 1992, will be following the example of Prince Michael of Kent, who renounced his place in the line of succession when he married Marie-Christine von Reibnitz, a Catholic divorcee, in 1978.
They married in an intimate civil ceremony in Vienna.
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