A LEADING Church of England bishop has declared that the Prince of Wales is required to apologise to Andrew Parker Bowles for breaking up his marriage to Camilla.

David Stancliffe, the Bishop of Salisbury, said church rules dictated that the prince should atone for committing adultery. The bishop’s intervention demonstrates the church’s determination to extract a price for its endorsement of the wedding.

Stancliffe, who is the church’s principal authority on the rules of worship, has made it clear that Prince Charles and his bride would have to do more than simply repeat the formulaic words of a confession during the church service.

“The Prince of Wales and Mrs Parker Bowles will be taking part in prayers of penitence at the service of prayer and dedication following their civil marriage,” he said in a statement.

“Preparation for the formal expression of such prayers includes the making good of any hurts, the restoration of relationships and serious attention being paid to the relationships fractured or damaged by misconduct.”

The bishop declined to specify what form of contrition Charles’s apology to Andrew Parker Bowles should take. But it would have to be offered in advance of the church service in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on April 8.

Other divorced men and women who have committed adultery are typically expected to apologise directly to the injured party when seeking a church service. This can be done person to person or by a letter.

This weekend a Clarence House spokesman said: “This is a private matter. We would not comment.”

Parker Bowles and Camilla divorced by mutual consent in January 1995 on the grounds of having lived apart for more than two years. The announcement came within two months of Charles’s televised admission that he had committed adultery. He did not say with whom.

In a sign that Charles is anxious to build bridges, he has invited Parker Bowles and his second wife Rosemary to the church service and reception at Windsor Castle.

In addition to a direct apology, there is a formal confession to be said during the service. One of the options includes the words: “Lord our God, in our sin we have avoided your call . . . bind up our wounds and revive us.”

Stancliffe has emerged as a behind-the-scenes fixer who has made Charles’s and Camilla’s wedding possible. He revealed in The Sunday Times last December that the Church of England would endorse the marriage through a service of prayer and dedication on condition that it was first conducted in a register office.

The decision by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to approve the marriage resolved a seemingly intractable dilemma.

In 2002 the Church of England decided for the first time to allow divorcees to remarry in church, but the bishops stymied Charles’s plans by stipulating that such weddings should not consecrate an “old infidelity”.

Williams’s intervention averted the risk that Charles might accede to the throne, and to the supreme governorship of the Church of England, while living in sin with his mistress.

Parker Bowles will carry out her first official engagement as a member of the royal family on April 14. She and Charles will break off from their honeymoon to open a children’s playground in the Highland village of Ballater.

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