Happy and glorious

SOME are still alive who can remember the day when a King had to abdicate before he could marry a divorcee. Many more can recall when the Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, was forced to give up the man she loved because he was divorced.

How times change. And how the Monarchy and the Royal Family have adapted with them. In 2018, only an isolated minority of curmudgeons and embittered republicans voice the slightest reservations about today’s marriage of a very modern couple in the ancient and dignified setting of Windsor Castle.

He is the Prince who has won the nation’s hearts, with his palpable good nature and his mother’s gift for engaging with people from every walk of life. She is the divorced American actress, with an eccentric family and a colourful past, who has made her own way in the world, helped only by a good brain, an appetite for hard work and a winning smile.

As is shown by the jubilant crowds massing in Windsor – and the countless others who will be celebrating elsewhere – there’s life in the Firm yet.

This paper joins the great mass of its readers in wishing Harry and Meghan every joy in the world, on this happy day and for the rest of their lives.