Queen to miss Prince Charles' wedding

The British sovereign would however attend a blessing and prayer service after the Prince's wedding to Camilla.

Queen Elizabeth II announced on Tuesday she would not attend the April 8 civil wedding of her son, Prince Charles, to his long-time companion Camilla Parker Bowles, stunning observers who suspect royal disapproval of the city hall ceremony.

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"The queen will not be attending the civil ceremony because she is aware that the prince and Mrs Parker Bowles wanted to keep the occasion low-key," said Buckingham Palace, her official London residence.

The palace said the British sovereign would however attend a blessing and prayer service after the wedding led by the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

"The queen and the rest of the royal family will, of course, be going to the service of dedication at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle," the statement continued.

Charles' sons from his marriage to the late Princess Diana - Prince William and Prince Harry - as well as Parker Bowles's children from her prior marriage, Tom and Laura, were still expected to attend the Windsor town hall ceremony.

A spokeswoman stressed this was not an insult by the queen, whose recent public backing for the union between her son and his lover has helped warm the public to the match.

Parker Bowles, 57, was widely seen as a major cause of the break-up of Charles' first marriage to the late Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in 1997 but has remained hugely popular.

"The queen's prime concern is that the civil ceremony should be as low-key as possible, in line with the couple's wishes," said the spokeswoman.

"Clearly if the queen were to attend the occasion would no longer be, by definition, low-key."

"The queen is attending the service of dedication and paying for the reception - this is not a snub."

Clarence House, the official residence of Prince Charles, said it was "happy with the decision".

Charles and Parker Bowles, who cannot marry in a church ceremony because they have both previously married and been divorced, have opted for a civil wedding to make official their relationship, which has continued off and on for decades.

Initial plans called for the April nuptials to be held inside Windsor Castle, one of the queen's residences west of London, but had to be scrapped because the venue has no license to hold a civil ceremony.

Licensing the palace for a civil wedding was deemed to be too much trouble - it would have also made the venue "regularly available", for three years, to other British couples who want to marry there - so the pair have opted for Windsor's Guildhall down the road.

Asked whether the queen's absence was because Charles was having a civil ceremony in public, and not a religious one in private, a palace spokeswoman declined to comment, telling AFP: "The queen makes her own decisions.... Other factors may or may not have gone into the decision."

But the British tabloid The Sun quoted a source close to the family last week saying the queen was irritated by the common town hall affair, seeing it as a sign that "the last vestige of the mystery of the monarchy will be smashed forever."

And royal expert Dickie Arbiter told Sky News that the queen cared only about the archbishop's blessing, not "signing two bits of paper in Windsor town hall".

"The queen, being a religious person, will see the blessing as the important part of this ceremony rather than the civil bit," he said.

Queen Elizabeth's sudden retreat from the wedding began triggering shockwaves immediately in Britain, with one historian called the decision "unprecedented".

"We are into unknown territories with this decision and one can only speculate on the reason why," constitutional historian David Starkey said.

He listed possible reasons for the refusal: "It could be security, that she doesn't approve, or that she doesn't care, a position which would unite her with the majority of her subjects.

"There has been no real precedent of this, and let's remember we are dealing with the wedding of the heir to the throne," said Starkey.