Prince Harry to marry Meghan Markle next year
Britain’s Prince Harry will marry his US actress girlfriend Meghan Markle early next year after the couple became engaged earlier this month, royal officials announced Monday.
“His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms. Meghan Markle. The wedding will take place in Spring 2018,” Clarence House, Prince Charles’ office, said in a statement.
The couple became engaged in London earlier this month, the office said, adding that the 33-year-old prince had informed his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, close members of the royal family and had sought the blessing of Markle’s parents.
The couple will live at Nottingham Cottage in London’s Kensington Palace, where his brother William and his pregnant wife Kate live with their two children.
Speculation has been rife that Harry was about to propose to his 36-year-old girlfriend, best known for her role as a lawyer in the hit television show “Suits.”
Reports that Markle was moving her two beloved dogs – Guy and Bogart – to London further fueled rumors of the first royal wedding since William and Kate in 2011.
Huge celebration
Wellwishers gathered outside Buckingham Palace, including Donna, 46, who called the news “amazing.”
“I think it’s great, because he looks very happy, it’s great for him,’ she said.
“It says a lot for the royal family, younger people are interested, and more people care about the royal family, they feel that both of the sons are much more down with the people.”
Harry, son of Prince Charles and the late princess Diana, spent 10 years in the British army, serving two tours of duty in Afghanistan, but hit the headlines for his partying and his outspoken criticism of the media, whom he blames for the death of his mother.
However, he has since turned himself into one of the royal family’s greatest assets after defining a role for himself as a caring but robust champion of veterans.
Harry and Meghan are believed to have met in May 2016, and the relationship was formalized by Kensington Palace, which handles communication for Prince Harry, following speculation in the press.
Exasperated by the media frenzy, the palace released a statement attacking the “sexism” and “racism” that Meghan, who is of mixed race, faced in the social media and the press. It also blasted the press for “harassing” the actress.
A feminist among Britain’s royals
American, mixed-race and “fiercely independent”: Meghan will breathe fresh air into the British royal family when she marries Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson.
Meghan was barely known in Britain when her name appeared on newspapers’ front pages last October.
The tabloids based their report of a relationship between Harry and Meghan, who lived in Toronto, Canada, on pictures showing them wearing the same tri-colored wristband.
Four days earlier, The Sun, Britain’s top-selling newspaper, ran a piece on its front page titled “Harry’s girl on Pornhub,” the adult video website.
But the actress’ only crime had been to take off her shirt while filming what the newspaper described as a “steamy scene” for her show “Suits,” which then made it onto the pornographic website.
The couple made their first official public appearance together in September, attending the opening ceremony of the third Invictus Games – created by Harry for disabled or wounded soldiers and veterans.
“We’re two people who are really happy and in love,” Meghan told Vanity Fair shortly before the event.
A woman who works
With a degree in communication, Meghan appears to have navigated her career without a hitch.
Like Harry, she does humanitarian work.
She is also telegenic, practices yoga and drinks detox drinks including “green juices,” according to her Instagram account.
Tabloids were quick to point out that the actress, three years Harry’s senior, is divorced, unearthing pictures of her first marriage (2010-2013) with an American producer.
However, none of this was enough to derail a royal wedding.
Quite the contrary, says Penny Junor, Prince Harry’s biographer: “I think that would be no problem at all, and the fact that she is of mixed race might even be a bonus,” she said.
“It would show Harry, a senior member of the Royal Family, to be a thoroughly modern man – not a precious, strange creature from another planet, which is how the royals are sometimes seen.”
Some believed, however, that her proud independence – the actress had maintained a long-distance relationship with the prince for much of their courtship – could be a source of contention for the Windsor family.
“I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches – I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works,” Meghan once wrote on her blog “Tig.”
Fiercely independent
Popular tabloid the Daily Mail wrote that it was “easy to see what happy-go-lucky Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have in common.”
“What’s less clear is... what some female members of the Royal Family will make of a fiercely independent young woman.”
Beyond her role as an ambassador for the Canadian charity World Vision Canada, which works to improve children’s lives in developing countries, Meghan regularly asserts the feminist beliefs she forged during her childhood in California.
“Aged 11, she forced a soap manufacturer to alter an advert after she wrote a letter to then First Lady Hillary Clinton and other highprofile figures complaining that it implied women belonged in the kitchen,” wrote the BBC.
Nowadays, the actress also campaigns for women’s rights alongside the UN.
In a speech she made on the 2015 International Women’s Day, she urged women to make their voices heard, saying: “Women need a seat at the table, they need an invitation to be seated there, and in some cases, where this is not available, they need to create their own table.”