The Prince of Wales and his fiancee Camilla Parker Bowles have been given the all clear to marry in a register office on April 8.

Len Cook, the Registrar General for England and Wales, has dismissed the 11 legal objections lodged by disgruntled subjects to the civil marriage of the heir to the throne.

He said that he was "satisfied that none of these objections should obstruct the issue of a certificate" for the couple to marry at Windsor town hall. A spokeswoman at Clarence House, the couple's London residence, said that they were "pleased" at the news that a certificate could be issued.

Most of the objections were on the grounds that the law does not allow a member of the Royal Family to marry outside a church. If any of them had been upheld, a certificate could not have been issued and the Prince would have had to go to court to overturn the objection.

Mr Cook said, however, that the laws on royal marriage did not ban a civil marriage, and that the right to marry freely was strengthened by the 1998 Human Rights Act.

His ruling follows that of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who was prompted by the public wrangling over the point of law to take the rare step of publishing his legal opinion on why a civil marriage is permissible for the Prince.

The deadline for formal objections passed on March 4. Eleven were received, some by the register office in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, which covers the Prince ’s country retreat at Highgrove, and the rest at the register office in Chippenham, near Mrs Parker Bowles's house.

One of the objections waslodged by Paul Williamson, a vicar in West London, who maintained that as a divorcee, Prince Charles could not remarry while remaining the heir to the British throne. He has threatened to go to Windsor in person to demonstrate against the wedding.

It is unclear whether objectors may now apply for judicial review at the High Court.

The couple have opted not to try to marry in church because Mrs Parker-Bowles is a divorcee and the Prince's divorce was caused, at least in part, by the couple's adultery when they were married to other people.

The wedding has nonetheless attracted controversy and has at times been surrounded by an air of bungling. The couple's original plan to marry at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, had to be scrapped after dismayed courtiers discovered that it would have set a precedent allowing any British subject to ask to be married in the royal chapel for the next three years.

After this, it emerged that the Queen had decided not to attend the civil service, which has been interpreted in some quarters as a snub to her son.

Under the 1836 Marriage Act, members of the Royal Family are explicitly barred from marrying outside church. The 1949 Marriage Act superseded the 1836 Act, but included a clause saying: "Nothing in this Act shall affect any law or custom relating to the marriage of members of the royal family."

Legal experts opposed to the wedding argue that this wording means that the 1949 Act does not apply to the Royal Family, and that only emergency legislation could make a civil wedding legal for the Prince.

Lord Falconer said that, on the contrary, the 1949 Act had repealed the 1836 Act and meant that members of the Royal Family were free to marry as they wished.

"The Government is satisfied that it is lawful for the Prince of Wales and Mrs Parker Bowles, like anyone else, to marry by a civil ceremony in accordance with Part III of the Marriage Act 1949," he said in a statement.

"We are aware that different views have been taken in the past; but we consider that these were over-cautious, and we are clear that the interpretation I have set out in this statement is correct."

He added that the 1998 Human Rights Act required legislation to be interpreted wherever possible in a way that is compatible with the right to marry (article 12) and with the right to enjoy that right without discrimination (article 14).

"This, in our view, puts the modern meaning of the 1949 Act beyond doubt," he said.

The use of the European Convention of Human Rights to support the Prince's marriage has caused some raised eyebrows, as the Prince is the staunch opponent of the convention.

Sir Nicholas Lyell QC, a former Attorney General, said that Lord Falconer’s argument sounded "tenuous", and urged the Government to introduce a short Bill to clarify the legality of the forthcoming marriage.

"The Human Rights Act does help but it is an unsatisfactory state of affairs when the legality of the marriage of the Prince of Wales has to depend on that," he said.

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