Buckingham Palace denies Meghan's claims over birth certificate

Victoria Ward
·2 min read
The Duchess had suggested she was forced to change the birth certificate - Henk Kruger
The Duchess had suggested she was forced to change the birth certificate - Henk Kruger
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Buckingham Palace has denied the Duchess of Sussex’s claim that her son’s birth certificate was altered to follow royal protocol, describing her use of the word “dictated” as “unfortunate.”

A royal source said that no such convention existed, diplomatically suggesting that there had been a misunderstanding by her new US-based staff, with the detail “lost in translation”.

But their assertion that the Duchess’s strongly-worded statement “posed more questions than it answered” indicated frustration about the manner in which the issue was addressed by her team.

On Sunday, it emerged that the Duchess’s given names, Rachel Meghan, were removed from her son Archie’s birth certificate in June 2019, so it read not "Rachel Meghan Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex" but "Her Royal Highness Duchess of Sussex".

The change occurred 19 days after Archie's birth certificate was registered on May 17 2019. The Duke's name was also changed to insert the word "Prince", which had been left out of the original.

Following speculation about the reasons for the changes, the Duchess issued an attack on tabloid newspapers "and their carnival of so-called experts". She said the alterations were forced on the couple by Palace officials.

The birth certificate of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor - Jonathan Brady
The birth certificate of Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor - Jonathan Brady

Her spokesman said: "The change of name on 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 royal aide revealed that the change had been made by the Duchess’s palace staff in order to bring it in line with other private documents, such as her passport, which were changed following her marriage.

“These are civil documents, there is no protocol,” the source said.

The lack of any formal rules is illustrated by the fact that the Duchess of Cambridge gave her name as "Catherine Elizabeth her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cambridge" on her children's birth certificates.

In contrast, Diana, Princess of Wales, simply gave her name as "Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales" on Prince William's birth certificate.