Why this is a welcome landmark in royal history
EIGHTY-ONE years ago this month, Britain’s King Edward VIII was preparing to surrender his throne because of his love for Mrs Wallis Simpson. ‘We will not stand for an American divorcee as the wife of our king,’ wrote an angry correspondent quoted in one Canadian newspaper. ‘If the monarchy will not observe tradition, then we had better give it up altogether!’
In November 1936, most of Britain and the Empire – and certainly the British government of the time – agreed.
How times have changed. Time was when divorced persons were not admitted to the royal enclosure at Ascot. Now the bookmakers are saying that November 2017 is the month when Britain will welcome an American divorcee, Meghan Markle, into the royal family as the future wife of Prince Harry, currently fifth in line to the throne. There’s also an extra attraction: Ms Markle is of mixed race.
‘I’m half black and half white,’ she explained in Elle magazine two years ago. ‘My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American.’
In a world of euphemism and verbal tiptoeing around the truth on racial matters, it would seem that Meghan Markle can add forthrightness to her roster of attractions.
‘You create the identity you want for yourself,’ she wrote of her racial origins, ‘just as my ancestors did when they were given their freedom.’
Royal families are proud of their family trees and the House of Windsor’s about-to-be latest recruit feels the same pride in hers, describing in Elle how her great-great-great-grandfather on her mother’s side was one of the American slaves who was freed in 1865.
Whoever doubted the ability of the House of Windsor, with its own invented name, to reinvent itself? Meghan Markle shows every sign of being caring, hard-working and intelligent. Prince Harry first got to know his sweetheart, of course, in the way that we all did – through television. As Rachel Zane, the para-legal assistant and would-be lawyer in the TV series Suits, Meghan Markle impressed as an actress. Grace Kelly, the last actress to marry into high-profile royalty, was light, charming and beautiful, but her high society screen profile was of a mischievous fashion plate. Meghan stands for sterner stuff.
She was a philanthropist long before she met Harry, travelling to Rwanda to work on a clean water project, and she is now developing future plans, it is reported, to set up her own foundation, helping vulnerable young women around the world.
‘I’ve never wanted to be a lady who lunches,’ she told a UN Women’s Conference in 2015. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a woman who works.’ She’s certainly heading for the right place now – look at the formidable workrate of her future aunt, Princess Anne, not to mention, of course, the unremitting schedule of the 91-year-old queen. The infamous treatment handed out to Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend by press and politicians in the 1950s derived from the concept of the whole royal family having to ‘set a good example’.
Well, in contemporary terms, Harry and Meghan are now doing precisely that – with plans for much more. Presumably, Meghan will become a partner inside the innovative and adventurous Royal Foundation created by William, Harry and Kate to support and develop creative charities such as Place2Be, with its emphasis on the mental health of the young.
People frequently give credit to Diana, the ‘People’s Princess’, for the progressive and open instincts of her two sons – and so they should. But let us not forget the contribution of their father, Prince Charles, and the hell that he went through to win the right to marry his own divorced partner, Camilla Parker Bowles, as a divorcee himself. Prince Harry and Meghan will now be the beneficiaries of that battle. Prince Charles fought for the freedom that his son will now enjoy to publicly acknowledge and marry the woman of his choice.
Who would have imagined, even in the first decade of the 21st Century, that an heir to the throne (Prince William) could ‘shack up’ with his girlfriend Kate for the best part of eight years before making a ‘decent woman’ of her? When his grandmother came to the throne in 1952, that sort of behaviour was called ‘living in sin’. But his grandmother, Elizabeth II, blessed this potentially controversial waiting time.
All of this goes back to the openmindedness and the tone set by Britain’s royal head of state.
Recently we have learned that the key event triggering current expectations of an engagement announcement was the fact that Meghan and Harry went to the palace a few weeks ago where the queen is said to have conferred her blessing on the match.
So, will we be seeing Meghan with Harry at Sandringham this Christmas, taking her first public steps in her new life as a future princess? The omens seem promising, with reports that she will shortly be importing her two beloved rescue dogs to Britain.
It looks as if the royal family stand ready to smooth the way for this brilliant step forward – but what about the rest of the country? Will a marriage to Meghan – the monarchy’s Obama moment – prove a problem for the more prejudiced among the public?
I sincerely hope not. The actress has related how her great-greatgreat-grandfather, the last slave on her mother’s side, decided to give himself a new surname following the emancipation of 1865, picking out the word ‘Wisdom’. Let us hope that Meghan and Harry’s forthcoming happy news will inspire all of us with a generous measure of that wisdom this Christmas.
I have never wanted to be a lady who lunches, rather a lady who works