Prince Charles and Princess Diana were granted a preliminary divorce decree Monday and should be free of the bonds of marriage within six weeks.
Neither was in court for the brief hearing. The decree was granted two weeks before the couple's 15th anniversary.The couple announced Friday that they had agreed to an undisclosed financial settlement. Diana will keep her home at Kensington Palace and the title of princess but will no longer be addressed as "her royal highness." She and Charles will have equal access to their sons, William, 14, and Harry, 11.
The divorce is expected to become final on Aug. 28.
As the Waleses, Charles and Diana were at the bottom of an alphabetical list of divorces handled Monday by Judge Gerard Angel of the Family Division of the High Court. The couple paid the standard fee of $125.
The certificate of preliminary divorce, numbered 5029 of 1996, lists Charles as petitioner and Diana as respondent.
In an affidavit to the court and later released to the press, Charles said: "Both myself and the respondent recognized there were irreconcilable differences and that accordingly we could no longer live together."
Asked to state the date and circumstances in which he came to the conclusion that the marriage was at an end, he said: "An official announcement was made by the prime minister in November 1993 to announce the separation. This reflected my own belief that the marriage was at an end."
But Charles got the date wrong. Prime Minister John Major made the announcement Dec. 9, 1992.