Meghan markle

Strictly in terms of its implications for the succession, the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s son this week was not the most important of royal births. The boy has been born seventh in line to the throne, but that position can be expected to fall rapidly once the Cambridge children begin to marry. He is not born to be king, and may never even be granted the title of prince. Nevertheless, the birth has attracted wide attention and celebration, inspiring front-page headlines on foreign newspapers and eliciting interest in Britain from types of people who don’t normally care about royal events. Partly this is down to the

Over the centuries, the British royal family have been many things: conquerors, vanquishers, tyrants and buffoons. They have been denied their destiny, gone mad with grief, been exalted and even exiled. They have been beheaded, beholden, belligerent and benevolent, but until now they have never really been victims. And certainly not self-identifying victims. Yet the cult of victimhood has engulfed the royal battlements like a poisoned ivy. It has curled into ducal nook and princessy psyche, and it has turned some of the most privileged people on the planet into a whiny bunch. Recently, we have discovered the following. The Duke of Cambridge struggled in his role as air ambulance

I have a phobia of wedding lists. They always seem very presumptuous. Friends ask for monstrous amounts of things that I’m sure they don’t really want. I look at their lists and my heart sinks. I know I should buy something, but what to choose from all the overpriced paraphernalia? I wonder if the guests of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle felt the same way when their royal wedding invitations arrived. It had been announced that the pair didn’t want presents and instead, donations should be made to seven charities that reflected their ‘shared values’. But then came the news that their ‘private’ wedding list would be held with Soho

The wedding of Prince Harry, sixth in line to the British throne, and Meghan Markle, actress and former star of the legal drama Suits, is almost upon us. The cake has been commissioned from a Hackney bakery — ‘a lemon elderflower cake that will incorporate the bright flavours of spring’, according to a palace statement — and alterations are still being made to the wedding dress (the bride reportedly keeps shrinking). By 19 May, the spotlight will be firmly on the bride and groom, since William and Kate are again in the bleary-eyed enchanted zone of new parents, this time of a baby boy: Kate has thus been relieved of

The latest challenge asked for a poem written by a poet laureate present or past on the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The role of laureate is not for everyone. Craig Raine once said to Ted Hughes, during a discussion of the then-vacant post, ‘Of course, no one in their right mind would really want it.’ (‘You’d get some terrific fishing,’ Hughes responded.) And Andrew Motion — who was in the hot seat for ten years and was much mocked for the rap he wrote to mark Prince William’s 21st birthday — was candid about its pitfalls: ‘How was I to steer an appropriate course between familiarity (which

Thank God for the proprieties. This magazine’s editor, Fraser Nelson, rattled a few score Anglicans today when he declared in his Radio 4 newspaper roundup at Broadcasting House (pleasingly paired with the FT’s Lionel Barber, BTW) that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were to share a bedroom when they stay with the Queen at Sandringham over Christmas. This was on the back of a piece by Rachel Johnson, sister of, in the Mail on Sunday, deploring the fact that Meghan was to glad hand the crowds after the Christmas service, even though she’s only engaged. It was the bedroom-sharing arrangement bit that scandalised me. If the Queen, whose other job

Isn’t Meghan fabulous? Hasn’t she totally brought the monarchy into the 21st century? Doesn’t she make Kate look like such a square? We were so bored of Sloaney English roses, weren’t we? Meghan Markle is widely considered to be the best thing to have happened to the royal family — and Britain — in a long time. The newspapers are ecstatic, and not just the patriotic ones. There will be pictures, pictures and more pictures to come. Or fake pictures, if that’s what sells. The Sunday Sport recently ‘discovered’ a fake topless picture of Prince Harry’s squeeze, stuck it on the front page and ran with the headline ‘Harry’s Meghan

The world may be dazzled by Prince Harry marrying a divorced, mixed-race American TV star. But his grand friends and royal cousins will hardly bat an eyelid. Because they’ve been marrying celebs (and Americans) for the past decade or so. In a subtle, gradual change in the British upper classes, the aristocracy has given way to the glamocracy. Gone is the blue-blood obsession; gone the marrying off of smart cousin to smart cousin which has continued since Agincourt; gone the Mrs Bennets frantically flicking through Burke’s Peerage, desperate to marry off their boot-faced daughter to the local squire. These days, young royalty and aristocracy are increasingly mixing with, and marry-ing,

‘The thing is,’ said my friend, after the broadcast of the engagement interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, ‘you can’t imagine actually bowing or curtseying to her, can you?’ That is pretty well the crux of the engagement issue: can you see yourself doing either in the case of the newest prospective member of the Windsor family? Personally, I would curtsey to the Queen and I have done to Prince Philip; I would draw the line at Camilla, and I wouldn’t dream of curtseying to Meghan. My friend was in fact A.N. Wilson, biographer of,  inter alia, Queen Victoria. It was a blessed relief to talk to someone who wasn’t