LONDON – Prince Charles (search) and his longtime love, Camilla Parker Bowles (search), will acknowledge their "manifold sins and wickedness" Saturday at a church blessing of their marriage that will be broadcast to millions of people.
"We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed," the confession reads.
Charles and Camilla, tying the knot after a 35-year affair that spanned each of their failed marriages, will join the congregation in reciting the strongly worded penitence from the 17th-century Book of Common Prayer (search).
Watch FOX News Channel's special coverage of the Royal Wedding, beginning Saturday at 6 a.m. EDT.
There is no reference to adultery or other specific misdeeds, and such confessions are standard in Anglican wedding blessings.
However, the words stand out as Charles weds the woman some see as the cause for the breakup of his marriage to the late Princess Diana (search).
After the confession, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (search), spiritual head of the world's 77 million Anglicans, will ask the heir to the throne: "Charles, have you resolved to be faithful to your wife, forsaking all others so long as you both shall live?"
The blessing ceremony, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EDT, will take place after a civil wedding ceremony, which will take place Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m. EDT at Windsor's town hall, known as the Guildhall.
The civil ceremony, at which Charles, 56, and Camilla, 57, will take their vows, will be attended only by about two dozen family members, including Charles' sons, William and Harry; his brothers, Andrew and Edward; his sister, Anne and Parker Bowles' grown children, Tom and Laura.
Charles' mother, Queen Elizabeth II (search), and her husband, Prince Philip, will not be there, saying they are honoring Charles' wish to keep it "low key" — but they will be among the approximately 800 guests at the religious blessing at Windsor Castle.
The blessing will be a starry affair.
Entertainers include ribald comedian Joan Rivers (search), a friend of the couple; Joanna Lumley (search), best known for playing gin-soaked aging model Patsy on "Absolutely Fabulous"; actor Kenneth Branagh (search) and actress Trudi Styler (search), wife of superstar Sting. Styler is a supporter of Charles' Princes Trust charity.
Britain's political elite will be represented by Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) and opposition leaders Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy, leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties respectively.
The bride's ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, is expected to attend the religious service, Charles' Clarence House office said. It declined to comment on media reports that several of the prince's former girlfriends from his bachelor days also would be present.
As Saturday's wedding of the fifty-something divorcees approached, the town of Windsor was being buffed to a royal luster, and the faithful scouted sidewalk vantage points.
"It's a lot of hubbub, but they should have been married a long time ago," said Lorraine Milligan, a tourist from Phoenix, Ariz., as scores of journalists and police swarmed over the street below Windsor Castle's ramparts.
The wedding has brought a buzz to Windsor, a handsome riverside town 20 miles west of London that has been home to British monarchs for a millennium.
Hotels are fully booked, and souvenir shops are doing a brisk trade in royal wedding mugs, tea towels and even jigsaw puzzles — although most are emblazoned with the wrong date, April 8.
The wedding was postponed by a day so it would not conflict with the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
"A lot of people want April 8," said shopkeeper Deep Basra, ringing up a sale with a happy shrug.
Opinion polls show the majority of British people accept Charles' second marriage but object to the idea of Camilla ever becoming Queen. Over the years, Camilla has been ridiculed by the British tabloids, mocked for her looks seemingly because she is more plain than Diana was.
Some people have expressed reservations about Charles — a future supreme governor of the Church of England — going against its traditional resistance to remarriage of divorcees.
But Williams said he was satisfied with the arrangements, and agreed to preside at the service in St. George's Chapel.
No heir to the throne had previously had a civil wedding, and there was some argument about whether that was legal. The government's chief legal adviser ruled it was, and England's chief registrar subsequently overruled 11 objections to the wedding from members of the public.
Charles' bride will enter the Guildhall as Camilla Parker Bowles. She will leave half an hour later, technically Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales — a title she wishes to avoid in deference to memories of Diana. She will be known instead as Duchess of Cornwall (search).
It's only a few yards from the royal residence at Windsor Castle to Guildhall, but the couple's journey there has been long and rocky.
Charles met Camilla Shand more than 30 years ago, discovering a shared sense of humor and love of rural life. But the prince sailed off on an eight-month voyage with the Royal Navy without cementing their relationship; in his absence she married Andrew Parker Bowles.
In 1981, the prince, then 32, married 20-year-old Lady Diana Spencer in full regal pomp at St. Paul's Cathedral. The beautiful young princess won the nation's heart, but didn't hold her husband's.
Within a few years, Charles had resumed his relationship with Parker Bowles.
"There were three of us in that marriage," Diana said later — although she acknowledged affairs of her own.
Many Britons took Diana's view, vilifying Parker Bowles as a royal homewrecker.
Charles' and Parker Bowles' marriages both collapsed — she was divorced in 1995, he in 1996. Andrew Parker Bowles remarried in 1996.
"The People's Princess" Diana died in 1997 when her car crashed in Paris a year after her bitter divorce from Charles.
After her death, Charles and Camilla cautiously began making their relationship public. Their first public appearance together came in 1999. The first public kiss was in 2001. In February, the prince and Parker Bowles announced they would wed.
That was not the end of their troubles.
They had intended to marry at Windsor Castle, but it wasn't licensed as a wedding venue. The ceremony was switched to the more prosaic Guildhall, and then the queen announced she wouldn't be there.
Newspapers sensed a snub, although Buckingham Palace said the monarch wanted to respect the couple's desire for a low-key wedding.
During the blessing ceremony, Windsor Castle will be protected by police on horseback, plain-clothes officers and sharpshooters on rooftops. In order to thwart the paparazzi, a large green screen was placed at the top of the main castle wall.
On Thursday, a reporter for British tabloid the Sun said he was able to get inside the castle without a pass or an appointment in a van that contained a brown package with the word "bomb" written on it.
Royal security is notoriously leaky. A comedian dressed as Usama bin Laden crashed Prince William's 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle in 2003. Later that year, a reporter from the Daily Mirror got a job as a servant at Buckingham Palace and took pictures of the royals' living quarters.
In September, a protester dressed as Batman climbed onto a ledge on the front of Buckingham Palace and remained there for several hours.
On Tuesday, the Sun reported that two intruders broke into the private area of Windsor Castle on Sunday.
FOX News' Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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