Prince Charles will have to keep a stiff upper lip when he receives a present from the Pope next week.Benedict XVI will serve Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall a set of divorce papers - a leather-bound facsimile of the appeal sent by English peers to the Vatican asking for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1530.
The papers will bring to mind the Henry's dissolution of the monasteries, when he 'divorced' England from the Vatican and installed himself as the head of the 'Church of England', as well as perhaps an uncomfortable reminder of Charles's own divorce
from Princess Diana and controversial marriage to Camilla.
The Roman Catholic Church considers marriage a legal and sacred bond 'which cannot be broken using temporal laws'.
The Prince, who will present his wife to Benedict XVI for the first time, has not had an audience at the Vatican since his divorce.
The gift is intended as a gesture to help to heal five centuries of schism between Rome and the Church of England, of which the Prince will one day be the head. It also stands as a reminder of the causes of the rift and of the Vatican’s stern views on divorce.
The Prince was the Royal Family’s first senior member to marry a divorcée since Edward VIII, who had to abdicate in 1936 to marry the American Wallis Simpson.
He and and Camilla are Anglicans but Andrew Parker-Bowles, the Duchess’s former husband, was a Catholic and their children were raised as Catholics.
The appeal on Henry VIII’s behalf is kept in the Vatican Secret Archives and is rarely seen by the public.
It bears 85 red wax seals and is a key document in the history of the Reformation and England’s break with Rome.The official Vatican comment on the split reads: 'Whatever the remote cause of the Anglican schism, there is no doubt that the most immediate and determining cause was Henry VIII’s wish to get rid of his legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and aunt of the future Emperor Charles V.
']Henry] was ready to take any decision in order to achieve his aim ... and never ceased to put pressure on Rome”. In the end Clement declared Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine “indissoluble”.
Henry married Anne Boleyn anyway and declared the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome.
The document has been reproduced by Scrinium, a Vatican-linked specialist publisher based in Venice.
A spokeswoman for Scrinium confirmed that the Prince would be the first to receive a copy of the Henry VIII document.
The Prince and the Duchess arrive in Rome on Sunday and will have an audience with the Pope the next day.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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