ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 17, 1996 TAG: 9604170045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LONDON
SOURCE: Cox News Service
Prince Andrew, the duke of York, and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, the duchess, announced Tuesday that they expect to divorce by the end of May, 10 years after they married.
The announcement of the ``lesser royal divorce'' comes two months after the duke's older brother, Prince Charles, who is heir to the throne, and Charles' wife, Princess Diana, said they had started divorce negotiations.
Queen Elizabeth II, who will celebrate her 70th birthday Sunday, was ``saddened'' by the conclusive breakup of Prince Andrew's marriage, BBC radio news reported. But the divorce comes after four often embarrassing years of separation for Andrew and Fergie.
The queen still awaits what is referred to here as the ``greater royal divorce,'' as she has personally urged Charles and Diana to end their often rancorous soap opera-like relationship that has heaped derision on the monarchy and undermined its waning influence in British life.
Historian David Starkey of the London School of Economics, an expert on the monarchy, told the BBC the expected divorce of Charles and Diana was a ``tragedy,'' but that the ``divorce of the duke and duchess of York, like the marriage I suppose, is pure farce.''
The fast-track divorce proceedings will begin today in the High Court Family Division.
According to the divorce announcement made by the couple's lawyers, Fergie, 37, has agreed to drop the title ``Her Royal Highness.''
The couple's two children, Princesses Beatrice, 7, and Eugenie, 6, will continue to live with their mother, but both parents will ``participate fully'' in their upbringing, the announcement said.
A Royal Navy pilot who now holds a land-based command, Andrew, 36, says little publicly, shuns the limelight and is not the target of sleepless royal watchers as is his more flamboyant wife.
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