One tabloid has recently reported that Markle will fly back to the UK to have a showdown with Kate Middleton over who has a say in who Archie is allowed to marry. Now, you may have just said “isn’t Archie a baby?”
According to New Idea, Markle is livid after reading a Daily Mail article explaining that Archie will need to seek permission from the crown before he is allowed to get married.
Markle “thought she’d pulled off the escape of the century,” but has actually “underestimated centuries of protocol and tradition.” Markle would “hate for William and Kate to get their revenge on her and Harry through their son” by denying Archie his choice of partner.
Markle is taking matters into her own hands, as a so-called insider tells the tabloid that she is “preparing for an almighty showdown between herself, Kate and the Queen in London once travel restrictions ease.”
Just one sentence later, the tabloid makes it sound like she’s already arrived in the UK by calling this whole affair “Meghan’s secret trip back to the UK.” New Idea just said she’s preparing and now it says it’s a secret trip? With the royal family watched like hawks by the media, it’s extremely difficult to do any secret trip.
Anyway, the tabloid takes additional potshots at Markle and says she’s “sitting back like Santa Barbara royalty” during a recent interview with Gloria Steinem. In that interview, Markle said she’s happy to be in California “for so many reasons” which was apparently a direct insult to Middleton.
Middleton was preparing for this oncoming showdown “with an open mind, but when comments like that are deliberately aired, it makes it very hard for Kate,” the insider explains. Again we can clearly see the bias of this tabloid in showing Middleton to be calm and collected while Markle is aggressive and conniving.
The heart of this article comes from this Daily Mail story about Archie needing permission from the sovereign to get married. The act says up to the sixth person in the line of succession will need to get the reigning monarch’s permission to get married.
Archie is currently seventh in line after his father. Should the Queen die or abdicate, Prince Charles would become king and Archie would move into sixth, thus forcing him to ask King Charles III (or whatever name the Prince of Wales takes as king) for permission.
Now, there is no reason to publish this story. There is absolutely no pressing issue going on that would necessitate Markle flying across the world, nor is this anything Middleton would have any control over whatsoever. By the time this could become an issue, Archie would be an adult and could fight his own battles.
If Prince William has another baby, or if any of his kids have kids, then Archie would remain outside of the top six in line and would not need to ask for permission. Furthermore, let’s suppose he did ask for permission and was denied.
Archie could still get married, he would just be disqualified from succeeding to the crown. With all of his cousins in the way, it’s an extreme longshot that he would ever even be in line for the throne at all, so this continues to be a nonissue.
Let’s be honest here though, Archie’s potential wedding wouldn’t be for literally DECADES. This is a tabloid article speculating what could be a scandal in twenty years or more.
Until Archie is about to wed, this will simply be an obscure fun fact for royal scholars that Archie would need permission. There is no secret trip being planned, and Markle isn’t about to go after Middleton over a parliamentary act from 2013 that Middleton has no control over.
New Idea recently claimed Markle had been arrested for protesting. She wasn’t. It claimed Middleton was pregnant (a pregnancy which would kick Archie out of this whole permission-to-marry thing, we will add). She isn’t. It said Prince Harry had gone missing. He hadn’t. New Idea will seemingly publish anything it can dream up, regardless of if it’s truthful or even feasible.
Technically speaking, was Archie to propose after Queen Elizabeth dies but before any of his cousins or Prince William have kids, he would need Prince Charles’ permission to get married. Why this is worth bringing up is completely unknown considering how unlikely this is to be any problem.