Buckingham Palace is in an extraordinary fight with Meghan Markle, after top palace sources told The Daily Beast that it was Meghan’s office that changed her name on her son’s birth certificate.
Meghan’s representatives insisted that Meghan maintained her claim that she had absolutely no involvement in the name change and were shocked to find out.
Meghan’s team said on Monday it would have nothing to add to the dramatic statement issued on Sunday, in which a spokesman for Meghan said: “The name change in public documents in 2019 was dictated by The Palace, as confirmed by documents from senior Palace officials. This was not requested by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, nor by the Duke of Sussex. “
However, a highly placed source at Buckingham Palace told The Daily Beast: “The birth certificate has been altered by the former Office of the Duke and Duchess to ensure the consistency of the Duchess of Sussex’s name and title with other private documents. “
Meghan’s reps were trying to draw a line under the surreal fight, with some irritation in the Sussex camp that a bizarre argument over whether Meghan had been made “anonymous” by the palace overshadowed what should have been a sweet day for Harry and Meghan, like their archenemies, the Mail on Sunday, were forced to an embarrassing surrender in one of their ongoing legal battles with the couple.
Prince Harry accepted an apology and “substantial damages” for two “baseless, false and defamatory stories” in Submit titles stating that he “turned his back” on the British armed forces.
However, the real news agenda was instead dominated by Meghan’s extraordinary attack on the palace, in which she claimed that her first names were removed from her son’s birth certificate in the dictate of the royal establishment.
Meghan’s characterization of the case fed the narrative that she often presented, and that was presented in the sympathetic book Finding freedom: Harry and Meghan and forming a modern royal family to be excluded from the main decisions about her own life by the establishment’s “gray men”.
The Daily Beast was informed that Meghan is adamant that the name change on the certificates was made exclusively by the palace, without the consent of Harry and Meghan, and without them signing any documents.
UK law clearly specifies that only a child’s parent can change a birth certificate, as expected. The Daily Telegraph said the sources at Buckingham Palace said an “administrative error and nothing more” was to blame for the alteration of Archie’s certificate.
Meghan’s statement was made in response to a story in the Sun on Sunday, who accurately reported the disconcerting name change in official birth documentation, but later entered the realm of wild and inaccurate speculation when he claimed the change was a deliberate “snub” for Kate Middleton.
The Sun he somehow deduced that Meghan intended to insult Kate, because Kate’s first name was on her children’s birth certificates, while Diana’s was not. The tenuous argument, at best, ignored the fact that the first names of the queen’s parents were listed on her birth certificate.
The suggestion that the move was a snap for Kate Middleton was free and unconvincing, as noted by Tim Teeman in The Royal Beast’s actual weekly newsletter on Sunday, in which he wrote: “The Sun postulates this as an affront to William and Kate, because Kate has her name on her children’s birth certificates. The possibility is not raised that the decision was taken for personal reasons and not related to the rejection. “
Lady Colin Campbell, the veteran royal author who tipped the story of the name change to the Sun, told The Daily Beast that she believed that only the reigning monarch had the right to leave his first name on his children’s birth certificates and said he would reveal the mysteries of the anomalous royal birth certificates in a new video on his YouTube (compulsively channel) on Tuesday.
Titled individuals often exhibit a great deal of variation in the way they record their children’s names on birth certificates, as many people’s titles change when their parents die and they rise through the ranks.
The central mystery, however, remains why anyone would want to erase Meghan’s first name from their son’s birth certificate (or why Meghan and Harry believe they did). The fact that Kate’s first name remained on her children’s birth certificates, while Diana’s did not, makes the apparent conviction that they are the subject of a conspiracy even more disconcerting.
Another source told the Daily Beast that they believed the name had been changed on the birth certificate for a more prosaic reason: it then matched Meghan’s name on her new passport.
Meghan’s office declined to comment on whether she was looking for a very simple remedy for the whole situation: getting the changed birth certificate back.