When <strong>Harry</strong> met <strong>Meghan</strong> A royal bride-to-be like no other, <strong>Meghan</strong> <strong>Markle</strong> promises to bring an exciting new dimension to the family when she marries ever-popular <strong>Prince</strong> <strong>Harry</strong>, as journalist <strong>and</strong> author Valentine Low discovers How is <strong>Meghan</strong> going to fit in? As soon as <strong>Meghan</strong> <strong>Markle</strong>’s engagement to <strong>Prince</strong> <strong>Harry</strong> 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 <strong>and</strong> the formality <strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>Meghan</strong> 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 <strong>Meghan</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Harry</strong> together after the engagement was announced it was clear that this was a royal bride-to-be like no other. As they walked h<strong>and</strong>-in-h<strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>Harry</strong> used to play as a boy revealed much about their relationship. <strong>Harry</strong> not only dislikes the media, a mistrust whose causes are all too easy to underst<strong>and</strong>, but he also has deep-seated anxieties about performing in public. For him to st<strong>and</strong> in front of the cameras <strong>and</strong> answer highly personal questions was an ordeal he would have found excruciating. But as he spoke that day, <strong>Meghan</strong> could be seen stroking his h<strong>and</strong> 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. <strong>Harry</strong> may not exactly be a novice, but there is no doubt that it is <strong>Meghan</strong> who has the confidence, the self-belief <strong>and</strong> the sheer professionalism to live a life in the public eye. Since then, the <strong>Meghan</strong> moments have come thick <strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>Meghan</strong>’s speech at the UN women’s conference, or writing in a schoolgirl’s notebook as she shook h<strong>and</strong>s with the crowd on a walkabout in Cardiff — a small departure from accepted royal behaviour, perhaps, but something that William or <strong>Harry</strong>, let alone Charles, would never have done. The most significant <strong>Meghan</strong> moment to date came when she joined <strong>Harry</strong> <strong>and</strong> the Duke <strong>and</strong> Duchess of Cambridge at their first ever <strong>Royal</strong> Foundation forum in the City of London. During a Q&A session on stage she talked about women’s empowerment <strong>and</strong> spoke in a positive way about the #MeToo <strong>and</strong> 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 <strong>and</strong> 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 “<strong>Harry</strong> may not exactly be a novice, but there is no doubt that it is <strong>Meghan</strong> who has the confidence, the self-belief <strong>and</strong> the sheer professionalism to live a life in the public eyee” 8 THe ILLUSTRATeD RoyAL WeDDINgS