Meghan Markle, Harry marriage certificate contradicts secret wedding claim: report
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s marriage certificate contradicts the Duchess of Sussex’s claim that they secretly tied the knot in their backyard days before their lavish public exchange of vows, according to a report.
During her bombshell TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, Markle said she and Harry had actually gotten hitched three days before their highly publicized ceremony in 2018.
But the document the Sun obtained from the General Registrar’s Office confirms that the nuptials did take place on May 19 that year at Windsor Castle.
The news outlet also reported that the official who drew up the license for the couple’s wedding dismissed Markle’s claim.
“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,” Stephen Borton, former chief clerk at the Faculty Office, told the Sun.
“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,” Borton added.
During the sit-down with Oprah, Markle said: “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 called the archbishop, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, and asked him to marry them privately at their home in Nottingham Cottage.
“Just the three of us,” the prince chimed in.
Borton threw cold water on their claim.
“They couldn’t have got married in the grounds of Nottingham Cottage as it is not an authorized venue and there were not enough witnesses present. You cannot be married with just three people. It’s not a valid ceremony,” he told the Sun.
“Any certificate she may have of her vows on the wall is not an official wedding certificate,” he continued. “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 license was drawn up and the wording from Her Majesty the Queen authorizing the wedding and the official venue was recorded.”
The witnesses on the document are recorded as Prince Charles and Markle’s mother, Doria Ragland, according to the report.
The Sun said it paid the £42 (about $58) fee for the certificate, which lists Harry as “single,” his occupation as a “Prince of the United Kingdom,” and Markle as “divorced” and an “actor.”
A spokesman for the archbishop said he would not comment to the Sun on personal or pastoral matters.
