HARRY and Meghan’s shock TV claim that they married three days before their official ceremony is exposed as a sham today — by their own wedding certificate. The document is shown here for the first time after being provided by the General Register Office. It confirms the formalities DID take place on May 19, 2018, […]
HARRY and Meghan’s shock TV claim that they married three days before their official ceremony is exposed as a sham today — by their own wedding certificate.
The document is shown here for the first time after being provided by the General Register Office.
Read our Meghan and Harry live blog for the latest news...
It confirms the formalities DID take place on May 19, 2018, at Windsor Castle.
The official who drew up the licence for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding says Meghan is “obviously confused” over the marriage.
In a bombshell TV chat Meghan told Oprah Winfrey she and Harry tied the knot “in our backyard” three days before the lavish public wedding on May 19, 2018.
But last night — as their wedding certificate came to light for the first time — Stephen Borton dismissed the claim.
Mr Borton, former chief clerk at the Faculty Office, told The Sun: “I’m sorry, but Meghan is obviously confused and clearly misinformed.
“They did not marry three days earlier in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“The Special Licence I helped draw up enabled them to marry at St George’s Chapel in Windsor and what happened there on 19 May 2018 and was seen by millions around the world was the official wedding as recognised by the Church of England and the law.
“What I suspect they did was exchange some simple vows they had perhaps written themselves, and which is fashionable, and said that in front of the Archbishop — or, and more likely, it was a simple rehearsal.”
Meghan, 39, had stunned the world by telling US talk show queen Oprah: “You know, three days before our wedding, we got married. No one knows that.
“The vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
She said she and Harry phoned the Archbishop, the Most Reverend Justin Welby and asked him to marry them in private at Nottingham Cottage — their home in the grounds of Kensington Palace.
Harry, 36, chimed in: “Just the three of us.”
But Mr Borton, now a consultant for the Faculty Office, added: “They couldn’t have got married in the grounds of Nottingham Cottage as it is not an authorised venue and there were not enough witnesses present.
“You cannot be married with just three people. It’s not a valid ceremony.
“I think the Duchess is confused. Any certificate she may have of her vows on the wall is not an official wedding certificate.
“The wedding itself took place at St George’s Chapel under the conditions stipulated by the Royal Marriages Act of 1772 which have been recently amended.
“In order for them to be married a Special Licence was drawn up and the wording from Her Majesty the Queen authorising the wedding and the official venue was recorded.”
Mr Borton revealed the official £325 fee normally paid for couples to have a Special Licence was waived.
A copy of the official wedding certificate confirms the actual ceremony did take place on May 19, 2018, at Windsor.
The witnesses are recorded as Prince Charles and Meghan’s mum Doria Ragland.
It states the Sussexes were married according to the “rites and ceremonies of the Established Church” by Special Licence by “Justin Cantuar” .
This is an abbreviation of the Latin Cantuariensis, meaning Canterbury, and is the formal way the Archbishop signs himself on official documents.
The date of March 16, 2021, at the bottom, is the day before we obtained the certificate.
The Sun first contacted Windsor Register Office. They said they didn’t have the certificate and suggested we contact the General Register Office where all birth, marriage and death certificates are held.
The Sun applied online at the website of the General Register Office and gave the names of the parties, venue and the wedding date.
A fee of £42 was paid and the certificate arrived in the post.
It lists Harry as “single” and his occupation as a “Prince of the United Kingdom” and Meghan as “divorced” and an “actor”’.
Her dad Thomas Markle is described as a “lighting director” and Charles as a “Prince of the United Kingdom”.
Harry and Meghan married in front of 600 guests in a wedding estimated to have cost £32million, including security.
If what the couple told Oprah was right it follows that the Archbishop, leader of the Church of England, had not only broken the law, but then presided over a “fake” royal wedding in the presence of the Queen, who is the titular head of the Church of England.
A spokesman for the Archbishop said he would not be commenting on personal or pastoral matters.
Rev Mark Edwards, a C of E priest from Newcastle, said: “When I called Lambeth Palace to ask about this I was told Justin doesn’t do private weddings. Meghan doesn’t understand.
“But the fact that the Archbishop has not commented publicly needs to be addressed.”
By Petronella Wyatt, author and journalist
“FURIOUS” is not an adjective one would normally associate with the Duke of Cambridge.
But, oh brother. The dice have been rolled and Wills has found himself on the receiving end of a pair of snake eyes, courtesy of Prince Harry.
Along with his anger at Harry’s betrayal, what irks William is his brother’s claim, aired on the Oprah moanfest, that he is “trapped” in the Royal Family — a field hand and bond servant to “duty”.
Of course, these days “duty” and Harry don’t exactly go together like horse and carriage.
His conversion from swashbuckling Army blade, ablaze with loyalty to Queen and country, has been notable for its startling rapidity.
He now does something La Meghan calls “thriving”, which seems to be exclusively at the expense of his family.
It pains me to say it, William, but I could have told you so.
Not until the parched California hills freeze over will there be a reconciliation between you and the Prince of Sighs and Mother Teresa of Montecito.
It would shatter Meghan’s crystalline “truth’ and suggest that recollections do indeed vary.
“Duty” is not just the foundations on which a Monarchy is built, There is familial duty, duty to one’s parents and grandparents, duty to one’s brothers and sisters.
We have seen precious little of this from Harry and Meghan.
William, and other members of the Windsor clan, cannot get their heads around this.
Not being Californian woke-ists, they do not expect others to bend to their ethics, or view of the world.
William’s only “narrative” is to get on with it and not let the side down, something the Duke and Duchess of Sussex regard as bourgeois and archaic.
Meghan had already caused “irreversible damage” to her own family, by snubbing her half-sister, Samantha Markle, and first alienating then discarding her poor father.
Now, with the steeliness of a gangland hitman, she has turned her sights on the most famous family in the world.
She had done nothing to deserve this fame, apart from persuading an impressionable prince to fall for her charms.
And like all delusional narcissists, she felt not a jot of gratitude or loyalty to her benefactress.
Now the Queen can give her nothing she wants or needs, her Majesty has been discarded like a pair of worn-out Louboutins.
Could it be that Herself aspires to create an alternative royal family in the United States? To set herself up, not so much as a People’s Princess, but as a queen over the water?
It would not be beyond Meg and Haz to start a sort of monarchy of the downtrodden, a protectorate of victims of sexism, racism, British newspaperism and other unbearable oppressions.
Thus, Meghan’s strategy depends on the Sussexes being against the Royal Family and its core values of duty and its hereditary principle.
As Prince William must realise, painful though it is to this increasingly impressive young man, a reconciliation just ain’t going to happen.
Remember that Meghan and her haunted hubby have accused the Windsors of racism.
How would their new, ethnic minority fan base feel if such a crime was forgiven?
And what of poor Kate, painted as some snobby creature out of Downton Abbey, who makes poor American girls cry. How could Meghan possibly make it up with such a monster?
No, there is nothing in it for the Poseurs over the Water.
I implore you, William, stop “reaching out” to this pair. Nothing’s sacred to them.
Not loyalty, not discretion and certainly not duty.
Meghan is a Mean Girl and on this, recollections don’t vary.
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