Illustrated Royal Weddings - Prince Harry and Meghan Markle Preview

When Harry met
Meghan
A royal bride-to-be like no other, Meghan Markle promises to bring an exciting new dimension to the
family when she marries ever-popular Prince Harry, as journalist and author Valentine Low discovers
How is Meghan going to fit in? As soon as
Meghan Markle’s engagement to Prince Harry
was announced by Kensington Palace, it was
the question on everyone’s lips. How is this
American interloper going to learn the ways of
the royal family? How is she going to take to the protocol and
the formality and the often stuffy traditions of court life? In
short, how are they going to train her up?
It was the wrong question, of course. Instead people should
be asking: how is Meghan going to change the royal family?
How are they going to adapt to her ways of doing things?
Will she end up playing a decisive role in helping to shape
the monarchy for the rest of the 21st century?
From the very moment the world first set eyes upon Meghan
and Harry together after the engagement was announced it was
clear that this was a royal bride-to-be like no other. As they
walked hand-in-hand into the sunken garden for the traditional
engagement photocall, two things were immediately apparent.
The most obvious was that this was not only a couple deeply in
love, but they were not afraid to show it.
The other was what those few short moments in the garden
where Harry used to play as a boy revealed much about their
relationship. Harry not only dislikes the media, a mistrust
whose causes are all too easy to understand, but he also has
deep-seated anxieties about performing in public. For him
to stand in front of the cameras and answer highly personal
questions was an ordeal he would have found excruciating. But
as he spoke that day, Meghan could be seen stroking his hand in
reassurance, telling him in that small gesture he was doing fine.
With previous royal engagements — think Charles with
Diana, or William with Kate — it has been the worldly prince
introducing their shy young fiancée to the world. This time it
was different. Harry may not exactly be a novice, but there is no
doubt that it is Meghan who has the confidence, the self-belief
and the sheer professionalism to live a life in the public eye.
Since then, the Meghan moments have come thick and
fast: those little snapshots that have shown that here is a
woman who is happy to do things her own way, whether it is
hugging a charity worker who said she had been inspired by
Meghan’s speech at the UN women’s conference, or writing in
a schoolgirl’s notebook as she shook hands with the crowd on a
walkabout in Cardiff — a small departure from accepted royal
behaviour, perhaps, but something that William or Harry, let
alone Charles, would never have done.
The most significant Meghan moment to date came when
she joined Harry and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at
their first ever Royal Foundation forum in the City of London.
During a Q&A session on stage she talked about women’s
empowerment and spoke in a positive way about the #MeToo
and Time’s Up women’s empowerment campaigns in a way that
seemed to challenge the accepted norms of royal behaviour. It
was an issue that Kate had seemed to sidestep when she turned
up at the Bafta awards ceremony in a green dress with a black
ribbon below the bust, instead of wearing black in support of
the campaign against sexual harassment.
However, what really stood out was not her solidarity with
the sisterhood, but her remark about people who say women
should be encouraged to find a voice. “I fundamentally
disagree with that,” she said. Her argument was that women
already had a voice and they should use it, but what she meant
is beside the point: it was the mere fact that here was a woman
with opinions, who was not afraid to express them. »
GETTY IMAGES
“Harry may not exactly be a
novice, but there is no doubt
that it is Meghan who has the
confidence, the self-belief and
the sheer professionalism to live
a life in the public eyee”
8 THe ILLUSTRATeD RoyAL WeDDINgS