ninme

The Sunday Telegraph - Autumn Kelly, still a long way from the throne, by Melanie McDonagh

Monarchists of a nervous disposition can breathe again. Peter Phillips, son of Princess Anne, will not now have to give up his right of succession to the throne - he’s 11th in the queue, since you ask.

His pretty, blonde, bride-to-be, Autumn Kelly, has renounced her Roman Catholic faith for the Church of England. She has, it seems, been receiving instruction from the Dean of Windsor, the Rt Rev David Conner, which concluded with her being confirmed as an Anglican.

So if by some tragic mischance, or distressing Nepalese-style bloodbath, the Prince of Wales, Princes William and Harry, Prince Andrew, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Prince Edward and his children and the Princess Royal were all snuffed out, it will be Peter Phillips rather than his feisty sister Zara whose head will one day appear on the stamps. …

The chances of Peter Phillips succeeding were, then, always slim. But has it been enough to get his Canadian fiancée to discard the Catholic religion into which she was baptised and confirmed?

If so, to trade so much for so little - exchanging the truths of a church for which so many have died, for the opportunity of accommodating her in-laws - suggests a certain shallowness. Her mother, Kitty, took the trouble to let it be known last year that Autumn was proud of her religion.

Well, she now risks being seen as a girl whose regard for her immortal soul limps some way behind her anxiety to fit in when the Queen leads the troupe at Christmas to the church service at Balmoral.

Or perhaps I am being unjust and it was the limpid clarity of the Church of England on… oh, I don’t know, the Incarnation and the Resurrection… that attracted her to Anglicanism. Perhaps David Conner could let us know.

Hehe.