Engagement impending?

Marriage rumours surface after Price Harry, Meghan Markle have tea with Queen

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have fuelled rumours of an impending engagement by meeting Harry’s grandmother Queen Elizabeth for afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace.

The British royal and his Suits star girlfriend have been at the centre of claims they will soon announce an engagement for the past few months. And now Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper has added fuel to the fire by reporting that the couple attended a private meeting with the British monarch last Thursday.

According to the publication, the pair arrived at the palace at around 5 p.m. in a car with blacked out windows, and were then whisked up to the Queen’s private sitting room, where they spent the next hour talking to the royal matriarch.

“Everything about the teatime meeting was deliberately informal, I am told,” Daily Mail journalist Richard Kay reported. “In part it was to settle any nerves Meghan might have felt but also to ensure it was not widely publicized within the palace.”

Harry had reportedly asked his grandmother for a meeting over the summer, as his relationship with Meghan became more serious. It was recently claimed that the 36-year-old actress has quit her role as lawyer Rachel Zane in hit TV show Suits in preparation for a royal engagement.

Meghan and Harry first started dating 18 months ago, with Britain’s Kensington Palace making the unconventional move of issuing a statement confirming their romance just months into their relationship.

Meghan recently opened up about the relationship during an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, in which she gushed about her love for her prince.

“We’re a couple,” she told the publication. “We’re in love. I’m sure there will be a time when we will have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours. But we’re happy.

“Personally, I love a great love story.”

WENN FILES Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are seen together during September’s Invictus Games in Toronto. Rumours are swirling that the couple may be getting engaged after they had afternoon tea with Queen Elizabeth.