King Charles has apparently broken tradition and becomes the first monarch in almost four centuries as he bids farewell to Duchess of Kent in royal milestone.
According to a report by the Reuters, Prince William and Harry’s father became the first British monarch in some four centuries to attend a Roman Catholic funeral on Tuesday when he joined members of his family for a requiem mass for the Duchess of Kent, the wife of a cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth.
The duchess, Katharine Worsley, who joined the royal family when she married Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, in 1961, died on September 4, aged 92.
The report further says thus it was a break in tradition for King Charles, the Supreme Governor of the Protestant Church of England, to attend the funeral for the duchess at London's Westminster Cathedral, where the service was conducted by Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales.
Also present were Prince William and his wife Kate, although Charles' wife Queen Camilla had to pull out as she was recovering from acute sinusitis.
As per the statement by Palace, a devout follower of the Roman Catholic faith, the Duchess became the first Member of the Royal Family to convert to Catholicism for more than 300 years, doing so in 1994, and it was her wish to have her funeral at Westminster Cathedral.
The Funeral marks the first Royal Funeral at Westminster Cathedral since its construction in 1903, and the first Royal Catholic funeral in modern history.