And so the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth to her third child, the fifth in line to the British throne, with the official announcement bellowed to the world by the official town crier.


But there was a slight problem: the crier, Tony Appleton from Chelmsford, actually has nothing to do with Kensington Palace or the royal family.

Despite Appleton showing up to every major royal announcement since 2013, often drawing cheers and dozens of press photographers, he is not actually part of the official process for announcing a royal birth.

However, that didn’t stop US broadcaster CBS leading their coverage with footage of Appleton delivering the “official proclamation” of the royal birth. The video has since been removed from Twitter, but the video below shows how CBS This Morning announced the news.

CBS News deleted its "official royal baby proclamation" tweet but you can't delete live TV pic.twitter.com/hYwwOXu4x8 — Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) April 23, 2018

Hahahahaha the low rent fake town crier has fooled one of America’s biggest news networks. What does this say about the way Americans see the British. pic.twitter.com/g20mCETnLY — Mark Di Stefano ?? (@MarkDiStef) April 23, 2018

Many people on twitter were ready to point out the mistake…

Man posing as a town crier makes it onto the CBS morning news as making an "official proclamation." The official proclamation actually came by email and Twitter. https://t.co/b7rR9wDVWn — Daniel Sandford (@BBCDanielS) April 23, 2018

US broadcasters fairly muted in coverage of latest royal arrival, but the fake town crier is prominent. A normal country pic.twitter.com/7T03XpBE5h — Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) April 23, 2018

Although others said it’s exactly the sort of thing us Brits might do…

britain: 'lol i can’t believe the americans think we announce the royal baby with a town crier’ *once a year an MP is taken hostage at buckingham palace*

*bishops automatically get a seat in parliament*

*only way to quit as an MP is to be made steward of the chiltern hundreds* — Jon Stone (@joncstone) April 23, 2018

"oh god how embarrassing, I can't believe an American news network fell for that ridiculous town crier thing, can you IMAGINE if that's how we actually did stuff in this country?!" pic.twitter.com/HQ7v6qX0Uu — Jess Brammar (@jessbrammar) April 23, 2018


So, all in all, it’s a fair mistake to make. But as long as you remember that beefeaters eat beef exclusively and that the Black Rod is only an inanimate black carbon rod then we’ll let you off.