Monday 15 March 2021

The wedding that never was

Dubbed by Good Morning Britain presenter (or ex-presenter, since he fell on his sword and reportedly refused to apologize) Piers Morgan "a two-hour trashathon of our Royal Family", the interview given by Prince Harry and Meghan to Oprah Winfrey continues to be in the news.  I didn't watch it,: the 'edited highlights' were more than enough for me.  I was always brought up to firmly believe that you don't wash your dirty linen in public and to do it in circumstances where those in the firing line are effectively not in a position to respond seems to me to be particularly reprehensible.  Morality aside, though, the question being raised is how much of it was true.

 One thing which is relatively easy to check is the claim that the couple had a 'secret' wedding before the official one, with just the two of them and the Archbishop.  He, wisely, has declined to comment on what in fact took place, but an article in today's Daily Mail makes it fairly clear that he could not legally have married them. The marriage ceremony in England requires the presence of two witnesses and although I don't know what stipulations exist on who you can have (when Carol and I got married we had our respective fathers), they have to sign the entry in the register.  There has been no evidence produced as far as I'm aware to establish that this actually happened, so the obvious inference is that it didn't - or at least, not in the form that the couple have claimed.

Once you expose a hole in someone's account of something, it does of course open the door to the possibility that there may be others: "recollections may vary" as the Palace have said in a statement, is a polite way of putting it.