Good for the monarchy
hopelessly ill-prepared for the role. Contrast the naïve and painfully shy Diana with Meghan who is 36 years old, much more confident and thanks to her acting background at ease in front of the cameras.
Harry is clearly marrying Meghan for love, not out of a sense of duty and that’s another reason to celebrate. The last thing the Royal Family needs after a period of stability this century is another divorce so, although Harry is far down the list of succession, he still carries a burden to marry well.
Fortunately there’s a widespread feeling that he and Meghan, who have a shared passion for humanitarian causes, are well-suited. The couple have made it clear that they want donations for their chosen charities in lieu of wedding gifts.
Of course Meghan has one failed marriage behind her but that’s no longer a taboo and for that Harry owes a debt of gratitude to his father who fought the establishment so he could marry Camilla Parker Bowles.
“Everything changed when the Prince of Wales married Camilla, a divorcee,” says Penny Junor, author of Prince Harry: Brother, Soldier, Son. “In the recent past society had very different views about whom members of the Royal Family should marry but times have changed. Barriers have been lowered.”
Going back further it was a divorce that also prevented Harry’s great aunt Princess Margaret from marrying her long-time boyfriend Captain Peter Townsend in the early 1950s.
At the Palace there has also been an acceptance that in the 21st century everyone has a few skeletons in their cupboard.
It was all rather tame but Meghan did once strip for the cameras in a love scene for Suits. However in modern-day Britain few people will hold that against her. Her own extended family is dysfunctional but she will also gain sympathy for that.
Meghan, who is tipped to be given the title Duchess of Sussex, has already set about winning hearts.
TRADITIONALLY members of the Royal Family could be stand-offish and it was protocol not to touch them. In the past the merest brush of a hand on the Queen’s back by a foreign dignitary has been greeted with gasps of horror but Meghan has already turned that notion on its head. She’s delighted children and other well-wishers with warm embraces and won’t change her nature just because she’s marrying into the Windsor family.
“I’m American, I hug,” says Meghan simply. It’s not a calculated move but just another positive trait that she happens to bring to the table. Many who have met her have commented on how normal and down-to-earth she is and the more people feel she is “just like one of us” the stronger the monarchy becomes.
Surveys show that young people especially adore Meghan.
Royal weddings always create a feel-good effect, showing the monarchy at its best and demonstrating Britain’s flair for pomp and ceremony. It has been calculated that the nuptials of Harry and Meghan will be worth up to £500million to the economy, also creating a mini-tourism boom, while her nationality can only help cement the special relationship between the UK and the United States.
But it seems it’s the monarchy itself that is the biggest winner as it seeks to prove that it deserves to be regarded as a modern organisation that is fit to rule the land. On the day of the latest royal wedding the Meghan factor is already breathing fresh life into an ancient institution.