Till Death Do Us Join

It's in the nature of being an heir to the throne that you can only be successful if someone snuffs it, but the life of the Prince of Wales has been unusually circumscribed by deaths.

For years after his separation from Diana, the wisdom of the media palace-creepers was that he would be able to marry Mrs Parker Bowles only when his grandmother, who was seen to be the marital moralist among the monarchists, was in the vault. But when his ancient gran was predeceased by his young ex-wife, the revised calculation of the Buck House pundits was that Charles and Camilla would now only be able to wed when not only was the Queen Mother dead but the public cult of Diana had died down.

Both those conditions now apply and, indeed, another death this week - of Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd - should have put even more distance between the prince and his first marriage. And yet, mysteriously, the consensus, as represented by those papers that have declared themselves marriage guidance counsellors to Charles and Camilla, is that the marriage remains problematic.

One article yesterday suggested that, despite having now overcome the gran and Diana challenges that media moralists set him during the past decade, Charles still needed yet one more death before he could put a deposit on the top hat at Moss Bros. Reportedly, his mother can still not reconcile herself to having a divorced daughter-in-law. So a marriage might now only be possible when she is gone as well.

Given the longevity of the female Windsor line, this raises the prospect of an octogenarian Charles paying three rapid trips to a cathedral: for a royal funeral, a royal wedding and then his coronation, unless Andrew Parker Bowles were to go first, in which case C & C, as they were designated on the cufflinks found by Diana on her honeymoon, would finally be theologically free to swap rings.

These increasingly bizarre scenarios, in which the royal couple finally clink Zimmers at the altar rail in St Paul's shortly before returning there for their obsequies, show how ridiculous the situation is. In a culture in which the hot question around weddings long ago shifted to whether men should marry men or women women, it can surely be only a small percentage of the population that still cares if two people in late middle age can have a second heterosexual union.

The three interest groups that continue to resist the idea of a second Mrs Wales are monarchistic Anglicans, the rightwing press and die-hard Dianarites. The latter are led by Paul Burrell, who claimed on the radio this week that he had been forced to add a new chapter to his bestselling memoirs when he read in a lifestyle magazine that the Queen Mum's old place at Clarence House had been given a £10m makeover for Mrs Parker Bowles. Yet response to the sore butler's media appearances suggests that the Dianarites have increasingly less power to block her ex-husband's route up the aisle.

As for the religious objection, it has been pointed out that by resisting the idea of a marriage, conservative clerics are encouraging a situation in which Britain would have its first king to live openly in what used to be called sin. Admittedly, this may not be a contradiction. It may be the aim of the CofE's evangelical wing to prevent Charles from becoming king at all because they consider him an irredeemable adulterer and prone to pseudo-Buddhist spoutings.

But, if their hope is to bypass Charles, then it proves again the flaw in monarchism, which is that it demands a gamble on unknown quantities. How can they know that Prince William, when the moment came, would not be divorced or co-habiting? The recent history of marriages - particularly royal ones - suggests that CofE believers in the monarchy are going to need an adjustment to the rules on the king's ring finger if they want both institutions to survive.

With both the current and last archbishops of Canterbury apparently supporting a wedding, the final obstacle is the press, but this opposition is probably practical rather than moralistic. Currently in a long-enforced gap between royal marriages and scandals, they are compensating with the flammed-up scandal of a possible remarriage. But the wedding itself, if announced, would become a much better story.

The biggest problem is the suggestion from some Canterbury sources that the CofE would most easily tolerate a quiet ceremony: something like Princess Anne's second vows in a remote kirk. It's madness, though, to think that Charles and Camillahave a Gretna Green option. Their nuptials and the guest list would have the world's news desks in turmoil. So the biggest obstacle to a Charles and Camilla marriage is not theological, but editorial.