Prince Henry to wed Rachel
They’re Meghan and Harry’s real names – used by Queen as she gives blessing
tens of millions will be glued to their screens in May to watch Harry marry Meghan.
But according to an official blessing by the Queen, the happy couple tying the knot in Windsor are... Henry and Rachel.
the monarch has formally given permission for her grandson to wed his actress fiancée – but uses the names the pair were christened with.
At a Privy Council meeting on Wednesday, she issued her approval – known as a Declaration – to the nuptials of her ‘most dearly beloved grandson’ Prince Henry Charles Albert David of Wales and Rachel Meghan Markle.
the prince was christened Henry after successive kings. However, his parents announced that they preferred to call him Harry.
similarly Miss Markle, 36, was born Rachel Meghan but has always chosen to use her middle name both privately and professionally.
Her friends call her Megs. Harry, who will wed the Us star at st George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, on May 19, had to ask the Queen’s consent to marry under the terms of the succession to the Crown Act 2013.
For hundreds of years, the Royal Marriages Act 1772 had required all descendants of George II to seek the sovereign’s consent before they wed, otherwise their marriages were deemed invalid.
King George III, George II’s grandson, took action after his younger brother the Duke of Cumberland secretly married Lady Anne Horton, deemed to be a highly disreputable widow of a commoner. the law was repealed in 2013 and now only requires consent for the first six royals in the line of succession – Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, Prince Harry and Prince Andrew.
If Harry had failed to get the Queen’s approval for his marriage, he and his future descendants could technically have been disqualified from succeeding to the Crown. Given the fact that the monarch is hosting and helping to pay for the wedding, that was an unlikely outcome.
Indeed, it is understood the couple were at Windsor having tea with the Queen only last sunday to discuss their wedding plans – and that the invitations are in the process of being sent out.
Using the grandiloquent language of formal declarations by the Royal Household, the Queen’s blessing says her consent will be ‘signified under the Great seal and ... entered in the Books of the Privy Council’.
the wax Great seal of the Realm is attached by ribbons and used to symbolise a monarch’s approval of important state documents.
the declaration concludes: ‘now know ye that we have consented and by these Present signify Our Consent... Given at Our Court at Buckingham Palace the Fourteenth day of March 2018 in the sixty-seventh year of Our Reign.’ Like the Cambridges, Meghan will become a Duchess if Harry is made a Duke after the wedding. Royal experts believe he may take up the vacant role of Duke of sussex.
A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: ‘Her Majesty formally gave consent to the marriage of Prince Harry and Ms Meghan Markle under the 2013 succession to the Crown Act.’