A welcome watershed for Royalty
EIGHT Y-ONE years ago this month, 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 actively 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, 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 background, ‘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 – ‘all useful ingredients,’ says one trusted Windsor f ri end, ‘ f or members of our Royal Family.’
Prince Harry first got to know his sweetheart, of course, in the way that we all did – through television. As Rachel Zane, the paral egal 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 – can there be such a thing as a self-made princess?
The essence of Rachel Zane is her determination to make her own way in the world, without fear or favour – and Meghan herself has identical ambitions.
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 t o 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 our 91-year-old Queen.
The infamous treatment that was 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 enterprising and quietly innovative 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, as a divorcee himself. Prince Harry and Meghan will now be the beneficiaries of that battle.
Most of us may not think of Camilla Parker Bowles as a ‘sweetheart’ in the same romantic terms as we view the youthful Meghan Markle. But in legal and dynastic terms, the two women’s situation is exactly parallel.
Prince Charles fought for the freedom that his son will now enjoy to publicly acknowledge and marry the woman of his choice – and didn’t we give him a hard time in the process?
This all comes back to us and to the prejudices and the stereotypes that we, the general public, impose on our public figureheads. But history moves on – and sometimes in a positive fashion.
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
I have never wanted to be a lady who lunches, rather a lady who works
behaviour was called ‘living in sin’. But his grandmother Elizabeth II – herself a deeply committed Christian who is said to kneel beside her bedside every night in the style of her own mother – blessed this potentially controversial waiting time.
All of this goes back to the open-mindedness and the tone set by our Royal head of state. We know the Queen (tutored herself by a constitutional historian) took personal charge of William’s lessons as a future King, inviting him to Windsor when he was a teenager to study confidential Government papers in her ‘red boxes’, and instructing him in the topmost protocols of the Monarchy.
Recently we have learned 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 and sat down for tea with the Queen, who is said to have conferred her blessing on the match.
Was Prince Philip there as well? He was certainly there in spirit, since the free-thinking modernity of our representative Monarchy owes much to Philip’s no-nonsense impatience with formality and convention. 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 – a beagle and a labrador-shepherd – to Britain.
It would be marvellous if the roster of controversial Royal alliances could progress happily in the next few weeks with the smooth and noncontroversial addition of its two latest names: David and Wallis, Peter and Margaret, Charles and Camilla, and now Meghan and Harry.
It looks as if the Queen and 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-great-great-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.
The Queen is set to smooth the way for a brilliant step forward