Fascinating.
Hoe does the permission-thing work exactly?
Does Harry specifically has to ask the Queens permission? And how does that work, are there speciaal ceremonies/ protocols for that?
I don't know if the person who gets married has to ask the Queen directly for her permission, but the way it works is described in some detail in the
Explanatory Notes for the
Succession to the Crown Act 2013.
As explained in Note 20, the consent must be declared in Council and recorded in the books of the Privy Council. The Instrument of Consent technically does not require countersignature by government ministers, but , as explained in Note 19, the constitutional
practice is "
for Ministers to be informed of a proposed marriage of a person close in the succession to the Throne, and to have the opportunity of giving formal advice to Her Majesty as to whether consent should be given." Therefore, it is safe to assume that Meghan was also vetted by the British government.
In other countries, the role of the government is more explicit than in the UK. For example:
- In the Netherlands, consent is actually given by an Act of Parliament passed in a joint session of the two chambers. The consent bill is normally introduced in the joint session by the government on behalf of the King.
- In Sweden, under the amended Act of Succession, consent is given by the government, rather than the King. However, the government can only give its consent to a royal marriage if asked by the King to do so, meaning in practice that a double consent from the King and the government is required.
- In Belgium, consent is given by royal decree. Unlike the Instrument of Consent in the UK, the royal decree in Belgium must be countersigned, however, by one or more government ministers, see an example on page 2 here. In that example, the royal decree consenting to the marriage of Prince Amedeo of Belgium was countersigned by the prime minister and the justice minister. Note that, according to the preamble, Prince Amedeo formally asked for the consent and the royal decree was issued in response to his request, which is quite interesting.
Spain, on the other hand, is somewhat unique in the sense that, under the constitution of 1978, neither the King nor the
Cortes (i.e the Spanish Parliament) are required to give formal consent to royal marriages. Instead, there is only a
negative requirement that there must not be an explict
prohibition of the marriage contract either by the King or the
Cortes. The consent clause in Spain is much weaker in this sense than in other countries.
In a way, the consent rules in the UK are also weaker now, because, again as explained in the link above, the legal requirement of consent now applies only to individuals who, when they get married, are among the first six persons in line to the throne. In other countries, the consent requirement normally applies to all persons in the line of succession, but, in all cases, the only legal consequence of a marriage without consent is that the person who marries and his/her future descendants forfeit their succession rights. Otherwise, the marriage itself is legally valid, unlike what happened in the UK under the old
Royal Marriages Act 1772.