Headed for the altar?
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are officially a couple; now, speculation is rampant about what comes next
Is that the sound of abbey bells you hear ringing? The clip-clop of trotting horses pulling a gilt carriage? The roar of a million voices on the Mall in London shouting “Kiss her, Harry!”
Well, probably, but best not to get too far ahead of things when it comes to royal engagements and royal weddings.
Yes, Prince Harry, 33, the world’s most eligible royal bachelor, and his girlfriend of one year, American actress Meghan Markle, 36, are officially “out,” so to speak: They were seen and photographed together for the first time at an officially sanctioned public event — at Harry’s Invictus Games in Toronto this week — and looked for all the watching world like the loving couple she has said they are.
But will they soon announce their engagement? As Markle said in her remarkably candid Vanity Fair interview this month, theirs is a “great love story.”
“I’m pretty certain that cover story was done with the knowledge if not the blessing of Kensington Palace, maybe in coordination with Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, too,” says Sally Bedell Smith, the acclaimed American biographer of Harry’s nearest and dearest, including the late Princess Diana, Prince Charles and Queen Elizabeth II.
“I can’t imagine (Markle) would go off on her own and do something like this — at the very least she had Harry’s blessing,” Smith says. “That’s a pretty strong likelihood it could be a prelude to something serious.
“Basically, she said, ‘Watch this space.’ ”
The British tabloids, whose natural state is frenzied watchfulness about royal affairs, are on high alert now. Even before the duo’s appearance Monday at a
wheelchair tennis match, publications such as the Daily Mail and Metro were predicting that an engagement would be announced by the end of the year, with a wedding in 2018.
“We know she and Harry are in love and likely to get engaged, perhaps with a wedding in the summer,” says British PR consultant and royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliam.
So what happens next?
HISTORY IN THE MAKING
If Harry and Markle get engaged, Markle would become the first American to be welcomed into the British royal family — ever. She would become a royal duchess and be titled Her Royal Highness. And she would be the first actress and the first biracial person to marry a ranking member of the royal family.
CAN HARRY MARRY A DIVORCED WOMAN?
Yes, according to the Church of England, which is less dogmatic about divorced people remarrying than it was in, say, the 1930s or the 1950s.
In fact, Markle would not be the first American divorceé to marry a royal, but she’s no Wallis Simpson, the infamous American Duchess of Windsor. The Baltimore-bred two-time divorceé married the former King Edward VIII in 1937, six months after he quit his throne for her in 1936. Never forgiven, let alone welcomed, she was denied an HRH title by the royal family.
THE QUEEN MUST APPROVE
Harry needs the permission of his grandmother the queen to marry, and if she says yes, then Markle will be welcomed. The queen, the symbolic head of the Church of England who once had to deny her sister Princess Margaret permission to marry a divorced man, has come a long way since the
1950s: Margaret eventually divorced the man she did marry, and three of the queen’s four children are divorced.
THE STAKES ARE LOWER
Harry is not going to be king, so there is less pressure on him in general. He will soon become sixth in line to the throne, after brother Prince William and Duchess Kate’s third child is born in the spring.
“The likelihood that he will ever wear a crown is pretty remote at this stage, but he’s an exceedingly valuable and popular member of the royal family,” Smith says.
THE RIGHT MOMENT
Last month, Harry took Markle to Africa on a romantic safari for her birthday. It’s possible, Smith says, he asked her to marry him then, and they’re waiting for the right moment to make the announcement. That is what happened with Will and Kate, who were privately engaged in Kenya in October 2010 and waited until the following month to announce it.
AN IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARY
The right moment probably won’t be late November, Smith says, because it’s the 70th anniversary of the wedding of the queen, 91, and husband Prince Philip, 96, on Nov. 20.
Harry and Meghan “would not want to step on that,” Smith says. “If they are going to announce anything this year, it would probably be next month, but that’s my totally speculative guess.”
WHY RUSH?
Looking to Will and Kate again, those two courted for nearly a decade before they married, and lived together for years as well. “But they were younger,” says Smith, having met in college in their 20s. Also, they are a future king and queen, whose first job is producing heirs. This is not the case for Harry.
But if Harry and Meghan want to have children (and Harry is famous for his rapport with kids), they are under different time pressures than Will and Kate, who were 28 when they married. Kate will be 36 when her third child is born. Meghan will be 37 in 2018.
THE PRICE TO PAY
For him, it would mean increased media scrutiny, which Harry has already complained about, Fitzwilliam says. “If they marry, and most think it is a matter of when, it will be an extremely popular match, which will attract vast media attention. Harry is deeply resentful of media attention he considers intrusive.
For Markle, living in the royal goldfish bowl could be a difficult adjustment even for an actress used to media coverage, Fitzwilliam says. “Any echo of ‘the prince and the showgirl’ or Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly or the Duke and Duchess of Windsor makes for a media frenzy.”
Markle would have to give up acting, Smith predicts. Also, she’d likely have to adjust her fashion profile to be more like Duchess Kate’s, who has not ever been seen wearing ripped jeans at a public event.
Markle “would have to be more restrained in how she dresses,” Smith says. “She would not have to be as demure as Kate is, but probably ripped jeans wouldn’t cut it.”