The anatomy of a royal engagement
What Harry’s next steps might be
Last Thursday, it’s said, a Ford Galaxy with blacked-out windows crept across the forecourt of Buckingham Palace towards the Queen’s private entrance, its two passengers, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, off to meet his grandmother for tea. To royal-watchers, it can only mean one thing: an imminent engagement announcement.
Since their public snuggling at the closing ceremony of Harry’s Invictus Games in Toronto last month – with Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, also in attendance – rumours of an engagement between the prince, 33, and his actress girlfriend, 36, have gone into overdrive. Some reports have even suggested the couple are already engaged, and wedding plans well under way. Given Harry’s seemingly free-and-easy approach to his royal role, the romance has a distinctly informal air: both dressed down for their first public appearance together in Canada – torn jeans for her, black polo shirt for him.
“Prince Harry is very much his own man, as he has told us often enough,” says Hugo Vickers, biographer of the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Windsor, “so we need to set aside any normal ‘royal wedding’ thoughts.”
Still, it’s hard to overlook the fact that any engagement will ultimately be ruled by law – and royal convention. Royal engagements have followed a similar protocol for 70 years, since the Queen married Prince Philip. They stick to a pattern, from first public appearance to saying, “I do”. We’ve seen hints that Harry and Meghan are well on the road to wedlock. There’s been that first public appearance, and not only has Harry met Meghan’s mother – and, it seems, Meghan has met the Queen – but Meghan has also given her first interview, talking about Harry, in Vanity Fair.
Here are the rest of the hurdles they’ll have to jump in the long royal steeplechase to the altar...
Ask Granny’s permission
Given his position as fifth-in-line to the throne (though shortly to be sixth, after the birth of William and Kate’s next baby), the Prince would have to ask the Queen for permission to marry Meghan if he wants to stay in the running. Under the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, the first six people in the line of succession must ask the monarch to allow them to wed. There are unsubstantiated rumours that Harry has already done so. Both Prince William and Prince Charles asked the Queen’s permission to be married. Princess Margaret had to ask her sister for permission to marry Antony Armstrong-jones in 1960; permission she wouldn’t have been granted to marry divorcee Captain Peter Townsend in the 1950s without forfeiting her royal rights.
Book a place in Granny’s diary
As well as the legal requirement to ask the Queen’s permission, there is also the question of the packed royal diary – not just for the Queen, but for the whole family, who would be expected at Harry’s wedding but are generally booked-up several years in advance.
“Everyone thinks the engagement will come,” says Hugo Vickers, “But some people say it’s unlikely to be just yet, as Her Majesty and Prince Philip are about to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.”
The Queen and Prince Philip were married on November 20 1947, at Westminster Abbey, so any announcement about Harry’s engagement would probably not be until after that date this year.
The background check
Even with Prince Philip’s royal blood, there were raised eyebrows when he got engaged to the Queen on July 9 1947. Despite his heroic naval service during the war, petty-minded courtiers were concerned about the Nazi aristocrats who had married the prince’s sisters. Marion Crawford, the Queen’s former nanny, later wrote, “Some of the King’s advisers did not think him good enough for her. He was a prince without a home or kingdom. Some of the papers played long and loud tunes on the string of Philip’s foreign origin.”
Reporters have already trawled through Meghan Markle’s distant relations to find some rotters. But, in these more broad-minded days, we are not held responsible for our relatives’ behaviour – thankfully for the Duchess of Cambridge. Last week, her party-loving millionaire uncle, Gary Goldsmith, was charged with assaulting his fourth wife after a night out at a London charity event.
The exes
Edward VIII had to abdicate to wed the woman he loved, twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, soon after he came to the throne in 1936. Even 20 years later, Princess Margaret felt unable – by convention, if not by law – to marry Captain Peter Townsend, equerry to her father, George VI, because he had been divorced.
Meghan is herself a divorcee, previously married to Trevor Engelson, an American film and television producer, from 2011 to 2013. This would once have been an impediment to marrying in Westminster Abbey. When the divorced Prince Charles married the divorced Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005, it was a civil ceremony, followed by a blessing in St George’s Chapel, Windsor. However, things have changed even in the past decade. Earlier this year, an Abbey spokesman said, “The Abbey follows the General Synod Ruling of 2002. Since then, it has been possible for divorced people to be married in the Church of England.”
God check
It used to be the case that members of the Royal Family lost their place in
the line of succession if they married a Catholic. Meghan’s father is Jewish, and she attended the Catholic Immaculate Heart Convent in Los Angeles. But, since 2015, Royal Family members have been allowed to marry Catholics without jeopardising their position. Though any child of Harry and Meghan, if brought up Catholic, would be banned from succeeding to the throne (an unlikely prospect anyway) as the monarch remains the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The official interview
It seems likely that Prince Harry would do an official engagement interview on television, as his brother and father did before him. His parents’ engagement interview became infamous for Prince Charles’s remark, in response to the reporter’s question as to whether the couple were in love: “Whatever ‘in love’ means.” Yet it was not interpreted as prophetic of a doomed union at the time: “I have every newspaper published the day after that remark was made,” says Hugo Vickers. “Not one reported it.”
The official engagement interview with William and Kate was done by their friend Tom Bradby, the ITV
News at Ten presenter, at St James’s Palace. He attended their wedding.
Set a date and choose a dukedom
Prince William’s engagement followed much the same pattern as his father and grandmother. On November 16 2010, the news was announced by Clarence House – as will likely be the case with Prince Harry (although some have speculated it might be via a tweet) – with the revelation that they had got engaged in Kenya the month before. They were married five months later in Westminster Abbey; St Paul’s Cathedral, where Prince Charles was first married, was an anomaly.
Harry is likely to get married in Westminster Abbey, too, with a similar engagement period to his brother, father and granny, of about four to six months. Just like his grandfather Prince Philip, William accrued new titles on the morning of his wedding: Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus. Prince Harry can expect similar treatment.
Put a ring on it
Prince William gave Kate Princess Diana’s engagement ring. His brother will have to find a different one. Keen royal-watchers should look out for a tall, ginger 33-year-old in upmarket jewellers over the coming weeks.