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While Meghan Markle and Prince Harry recently set the record straight on what happened prior to their televised royal wedding, the Archbishop of Canterbury has now spoken out. In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Justin Welby confirmed that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex were not legally married three days before their Windsor nuptials.
“If any of you ever talk to a priest, you expect them to keep that talk confidential. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to. I had a number of private and pastoral meetings with the duke and duchess before the wedding,” he said.
The Archbishop continued, “The legal wedding was on the Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false. So you can make what you like about it. But the legal wedding was on the Saturday. But I won’t say what happened at any other meetings.”
During her sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired earlier this month, Meghan told the media mogul that she and Harry “got married” three days before their wedding. “No one knows that but we called the archbishop and we just said, ‘Look this thing, this spectacle is for the world for the world, but we want our union between us,” the Duchess said. “So like the vows that we have framed in our room are just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.” Harry added, “Just the three of us.”
A spokesperson for the Sussexes clarified Meghan’s comments last week telling TODAY that the Duke and Duchess “privately exchanged personal vows a few days before their official/legal wedding on May 19.”
Stephen Borton, the former chief clerk at the Faculty Office, previously told The Sun that “Meghan is obviously confused and clearly misinformed.” “They did not marry three days earlier in front of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he said. “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.”