It may be an unfortunate accident or a piece of mischievous theatre. Either way, the Prince of Wales will need all his regal sang-froid when he tears off the wrapping of his gift from the Pope next week.

When the Prince presents the Duchess of Cornwall to Benedict XVI as his wife for the first time, he will receive a gift that may strike an unwelcome chord: a “luxury facsimile” of the 1530 appeal by English peers to Pope Clement VII asking for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

It is intended as a gesture to help to heal five centuries of schism between Rome and the Church of England, of which the Prince will one day be the head. It is also a reminder of the causes of the rift and of the Vatican’s stern views on divorce.

The Prince met John Paul II at the Vatican in 1985, together with the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and represented the Queen at the funeral of the Pope four years ago. However, he has not had an audience at the Vatican since his divorce from Diana in 1996, her subsequent death and his remarriage to Camilla Parker Bowles.

The Prince was the Royal Family’s first senior member to marry a divorcée since Edward VIII, who had to abdicate in 1936 to marry the American Wallis Simpson. The Roman Catholic Church considers marriage a legal and sacred bond “which cannot be broken using temporal laws”.

The Prince and the Duchess are Anglicans. However, the Duchess’s former husband, Andrew Parker Bowles, was a Catholic, and they brought up their children as Catholics.

The appeal on Henry VIII’s behalf — kept in the Vatican Secret Archives and rarely seen by the public — bears 85 red wax seals and is a key document in the history of the Reformation and England’s break with Rome.

The official Vatican commentary stresses that “whatever the remote cause of the Anglican schism, there is no doubt that the most immediate and determining cause was Henry VIII’s wish to get rid of his legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and aunt of the future Emperor Charles V”.

It says that the King, who was determined to marry Anne Boleyn, was “ready to take any decision in order to achieve his aim. . . and never ceased to put pressure on Rome”. In the end Clement declared Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine “indissoluble”. Henry married Anne Boleyn anyway and declared the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome.

The parchment is one of several priceless documents being reproduced by Scrinium, a Vatican-linked specialist publisher based in Venice. A spokeswoman for Scrinium confirmed that the Prince would be the first to receive a copy of the Henry VIII document. Two years ago Scrinium introduced a scheme to market treasures from the Secret Archives with a facsimile of a 14th-century papal parchment absolving the Knights Templar of heresy.

The reproduction of Processus Contra Templarios, or “The Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars”, is sold at € 5,900 a copy. It comes in a soft leather case with replicas of the wax seals used by the Inquisition. The Vatican is said to be dismayed by reports that, when he becomes King, Charles wishes to be known as Defender of “Faith” or “Faiths” rather than “the Faith”, to reflect multicultural Britain. This would require a parliamentary amendment to the 1953 Royal Titles Act. The British monarch has been known as “Defender of the Faith” since the title was bestowed on Henry VIII by Leo X in 1521, before the break with Rome.

The Prince and the Duchess arrive in Rome on Sunday and will have an audience with the Pope the next day.