Prince Harry and fiancée Meghan Markle make engagement official.
LONDON — He is a flamehaired former wild child who courted controversy in his youth by smoking cannabis and by once wearing a Nazi uniform to a party. She is a biracial, divorced actress from abroad. Together, they are taking the British monarchy — that most conservative of institutions — into a more modern era.
Prince Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II and fifth in line to the throne, is engaged to Meghan Markle, his American girlfriend, the royal family said Monday.
The prince, 33, and Markle, 36, will marry in the spring, a statement from Clarence House added.
Harry and Markle’s engagement underscores recent shifts in the British monarchy. They are part of a new generation of royals eager to project themselves as modern, inclusive and down-to-earth. This latest set of royals, who include the duke and duchess of Cambridge — Harry’s elder brother, William, and his sister-in-law, Kate — have in recent years tried to connect better with the public.
It is a marked difference, for example, from the queen, who has maintained a more traditionally aloof style.
Harry and Markle are expected to be known as the duke and duchess of Sussex after they are married, according to the British news media, although she may be known informally as Princess Meghan. If Harry were to decline the dukedom, he would remain Prince Henry of Wales — his official name.
The pair have dated for more than a year and made their first official outing together in September in Toronto at the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style competition for wounded or sick members of the military and veterans.
Like his brother, Harry grew up in the public eye, first as a son of the heir to the throne, and then as an adolescent struggling over the loss of his mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car accident when he was 12. His grief played out in what he described as “total chaos” in his 20s, a period that was gleefully pounced on by the tabloids.
The relationship of Harry and Markle also has been the subject of intense scrutiny.
The announcement of their engagement ended days of fevered speculation by the British news media, some of which, in anticipation of the event, tried to find any royal connection with Markle. (The Daily Telegraph breathlessly reported an unverified study showing that Markle’s ancestor was in fact an aristocrat who was beheaded by Henry VIII, an ancestor of Harry.)
But other stories about Markle’s ethnicity and middle-class background — her mother is a black yoga instructor and her father is a white cinematographer — have drawn the ire of the royal family. The prince himself issued an unusual statement last year, denouncing the “racial undertones” of news coverage of Markle.
Harry’s public statement last year in defense of Markle effectively confirmed their relationship, and it also took aim at the British newspapers that have long hungered for news of the royals and their foibles.
In the blunt rebuke, Harry, through his spokesman, excoriated “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments.”
In their first interview since the announcement, Markle revealed that she had very little understanding of the British royal family and its significance.
“I didn’t know much about him,” she told the BBC, referring to her fiancé, adding that the pair had been set up on a blind date by a friend. “The only thing I asked her was, ‘Was he nice?’ ”
Harry said he tried to prepare her for the media scrutiny. Still, “we were totally surprised by the reaction. We were totally unprepared,” he said.
When asked about the way she has been portrayed by some British media, Markle replied: “It’s a shame that that is the climate in this world. At the end of the day, I’m proud of who I am and where I come from. We just focus on who we are as a couple.”
Markle describes herself as biracial. She graduated from Northwestern University in Illinois in 2003 and married in 2011, divorcing two years later.
She is best known for her roles in the TV legal drama “Suits” and in the sciencefiction series “Fringe,” and she appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair in September. Markle is also notable for her charitable work — she is a global ambassador for World Vision Canada — and she has worked for gender equality and women’s empowerment.
She also shares a love of dogs with the queen, who is known for having a collection of corgis. Their relationship is not the first in which a British royal has fallen in love with an American partner who had been married before.
King Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis in 1936 when he abdicated to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson, who was divorced. The Church of England at the time opposed the marriage, and the king chose love over his royal duties, with his brother taking his place to become King George VI.