After a 3-decade affair, Charles, Camilla to wed

LONDON — They have been friends for 30 years and lovers for most of that time. They have survived marriages to and divorces from other people; the icy disapproval of relatives; the resentment of the public; and, perhaps most excruciating of all, the publication of intimate details of their risque pillow talk.

But now Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Camilla Parker Bowles, whose love affair is said to have begun when she cheekily declared, "My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?," are to take the most radical and surprising step of their long, star-crossed romance.

They are getting married.

The wedding is to take place on April 8 in a civil ceremony at Windsor Castle, Charles announced Thursday, but the 57-year-old bride will not become the Princess of Wales — that position having already been more than filled by the prince's late and much-remembered ex-wife, Diana. Instead, Parker Bowles will be known as Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall.

Nor will she be crowned queen. In a move that addresses one of the thorniest issues surrounding the marriage, Parker Bowles will become the princess consort if Charles, 56, succeeds his mother on the throne. It will be the first time in the history of the English monarchy that such a title has been used, according to Vernon Bogdanor, professor of politics at Oxford University, and the first time an English king's wife has not been queen. (Queen Victoria did have Albert as Prince Consort.)

The announcement gives official status for the first time to Parker Bowles, who has been living in an uneasy purgatory — part of the prince's life, but bound by royal custom and social protocol to be an unequal partner. Although in recent years the two have appeared more often together in public, their murky status has put her in a difficult and oddly anachronistic position.

In earlier eras, of course, royals were not allowed to marry divorced people (never mind, unless they were Henry VIII, being divorced themselves). In 1936, Edward VIII renounced the throne rather than give up Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee. In 1955, Prince Charles' aunt, Princess Margaret, broke off a relationship with a divorced man rather than relinquish her royal status and all its perks.

But in a sign of how much things have changed, this time Queen Elizabeth gave her permission for, and blessing to, the engagement of her divorced son to his divorced lover. Saying that she and her husband, Charles' father, were "very happy," she ordered that the Round Tower at Windsor Castle be lit in celebration.