Prince Harry, a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II who is fifth
in line to the throne, is engaged to Meghan Markle, his American girlfriend,
the royal family said on Monday.
The prince, 33, got engaged this month to Ms. Markle, 36, a
statement from Clarence House said, adding that the wedding would be next
spring.
The relationship of Prince Harry and Ms. Markle, an actress,
has been the subject of intense media scrutiny, which last year prompted the
prince to denounce the “racial undertones” of news coverage of Ms. Markle,
whose mother is black and whose father is white.
The pair have dated for more than a year, and made their
first official outing together in September in Toronto at the Invictus Games, a
Paralympic-style competition for wounded or sick members of the military.
The prince’s reputation has changed markedly in recent
years.
He has gotten into trouble in the past, once wearing a Nazi
costume at a party, but he has since become a vocal advocate for mental health
awareness and has spoken about the difficulties he faced after the death of his
mother, Princess Diana. He has also taken an H.I.V. test, broadcast live on the
royals’ Facebook page in 2016, to promote the importance of testing for the
virus.
He has also come to be the face of a new generation of
royals — modern, down-to-earth and more in touch with the public. This year, he
even suggested that no one in the royal family actually wants to sit on the
throne.
“We are involved in modernizing the British monarchy. We are
not doing this for ourselves but for the greater good of the people,” he said
in an interview with Newsweek.
“Is there any one of the royal family who wants to be king
or queen? I don’t think so, but we will carry out our duties at the right
time.”
In another unusual break from palace protocol but one that
drew praise, he divulged to a newspaper that he had suffered for years after
the death of his mother in 1997, before finally getting help about three years
ago at the urging of his elder brother, Prince William.
The candid statement by the Prince Harry, in a podcast
released by The Daily Telegraph, was the latest indication of a shift within
the British monarchy toward greater openness, led by a younger generation. The
two princes, along with Prince William’s wife, Catherine, the Duchess of
Cambridge, are leading a campaign called Heads Together to end stigma around
mental illness.
Prince Harry said that not dealing with the trauma had
contributed to years of “total chaos” in his late 20s.
“I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and
therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a
quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well,” he said.
He added: “I have probably been very close to a complete
breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and
misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle.”
It was his public statement in defense of Ms. Markle that
effectively confirmed their relationship, while also taking on the British
newspapers that have long hungered for news of the royals and their foibles.
In the unusually blunt rebuke, Prince Harry, through his
spokesman, called out “the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the
racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of
social media trolls and web article comments.”
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