Will she be Princess Meghan or the Duchess of Sussex?

The last time an American divorcee was introduced into the Royal Family it imperilled the entire future of the monarchy. But unlike Edward VIII, Prince Harry is not the King or heir to the throne. And besides, Meghan Markle is a very different kind of woman from the predatory Wallis Simpson.

An intimate tea with the Queen on Thursday last week — as revealed in Wednesday’s Mail — could mean only one thing: that Meghan and Harry are moving towards an engagement.

If the couple do decide to marry, it is now clear they will have his grandmother’s approval — which is crucial, since Harry, as the fifth (soon to be sixth) in the line of succession, needs the permission of the Queen.

But how times are changing in our Royal Family, and who would say not for the better?

They were together in Toronto for the Invictus Games

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were seen at the Closing Ceremonyof the Invictus Games in Toronto last month 

The loved-up couple (pictured) had an intimate tea with the Queen last week as it suggests they are heading towards an engagement 

The loved-up couple (pictured) had an intimate tea with the Queen last week as it suggests they are heading towards an engagement 

Prince William’s Kate, a brilliant success as Duchess of Cambridge, came partly from coal‑mining stock in the North-East of England. Her mother Carole, now a successful businesswoman, spent her early years in a council house. Meghan’s maternal forebears were slaves.

The beautiful and spirited actress is already a favourite among the royals. Earlier this year, Harry introduced her to his father Prince Charles, who is said to have been ‘very impressed’. The Duchess of Cornwall (a fellow divorcee, of course) is understood to have described her as ‘a very, very nice girl, and so pleasant’.

Poignantly, at 36 — three years older than Harry — Meghan is the same age as Princess Diana was when she died two decades ago.

As for the Queen, approaching her 70th wedding anniversary next month, nothing would give her more pleasure than to see Harry happily married. 

They have a close, warm relationship and she has always enjoyed him coming to tea — teatime is her favourite part of the day, when she is at her most informal and relaxed. People outside the family are rarely invited to share it with her.

In some ways, the Queen identifies Harry with Prince Philip because both distinguished themselves in the Armed Forces, Philip seeing action in the Navy in World War II and Harry twice serving on the front line in Afghanistan.

So one can understand his nervousness at introducing his girlfriend to his grandmother (to say nothing of Meghan’s nerves). Harry has long told friends how apprehensive he would be when the time came to introduce ‘The One’ to the Queen.

For the Los Angeles-born actress, who stars in the U.S. television legal drama series Suits, the introduction — inevitably with a well-rehearsed curtsy — would have been the audition of auditions.

Thus far, compared with brother William’s courtship of Kate, Harry’s has been a whirlwind romance — just 15 months. It took William and Kate eight years to progress from first meeting to getting engaged, though the fellow students at St Andrews University were both very young when they met.

Harry, as the fifth in the line of succession, needs the permission of the Queen to marry Meghan (pictured together)

Harry, as the fifth in the line of succession, needs the permission of the Queen to marry Meghan (pictured together)

Tellingly, though, a full year before Harry began dating the actress, talking with a group of friends, he described his ‘ideal woman’ as being the girl who plays Rachel Zane in Suits.

For more than a year now, despite her filming commitments, Meghan has been slipping in and out of London and staying with the Prince at Kensington Palace, even shopping on the nearby High Street in a baseball cap (just as Diana used to) and looking completely at home. Royal staff and police have become used to seeing her around.

All the signs are that she is preparing for a new life.

She has apparently advised the Suits producers in Toronto, where the show is filmed and where she has an apartment, that she cannot commit herself to the series beyond Christmas. She has also ended her VIP leased car contract with Audi several months early.

This is clearly a royal romance being carefully choreographed — a sure sign of their devotion to each other — and there is little doubt where it is heading.

Only twice have statements been made for public consumption. The first, from Harry in November last year, was highly irregular and surprisingly bullish in tone. It confirmed they were in a relationship and asked the media to respect their privacy. His spokesman Jason Knauf said: ‘This is not a game. It is her life and his.’

Fast-forward to last month and Meghan was being interviewed in her home by the respected American glossy magazine Vanity Fair — and, to raised eyebrows, given Harry’s previous call for privacy — talking with unexpected candour about her romance with the Queen’s grandson.

These were her words: ‘We’re a couple, we’re in love. I’m sure there will be a time when we have to come forward and present ourselves and have stories to tell, but I hope what people will understand is that this is our time. This is for us. It’s part of what makes it so special, that it’s just ours but we’re happy. Personally I love a great love story.’

Aren’t these the words of a young woman whose life may be private at the moment but who expects it to become very public?

She added: ‘At the end of the day it’s really simple. We’re two people who are really happy and in love.’

Those words said it all — words she would never have uttered without Harry’s prior approval. It also suggests he may have urged her to speak out as a means to pave the way to publicly formalising their relationship.

Meghan Markle (left) is the same age as Princess Diana was when she died two decades ago

Meghan Markle (left) is the same age as Princess Diana was when she died two decades ago

The prospect of a royal wedding for this handsome couple certainly throws up a hatful of questions ¿ the first being: where?

The prospect of a royal wedding for this handsome couple certainly throws up a hatful of questions — the first being: where?

And how well the ground was prepared for last month’s Invictus Games in her adopted city of Toronto, where the world expected to see them together and was not disappointed.

They were hand in hand, he was pictured tenderly kissing her and, significantly, her mother was also there — Doria Ragland, 60, a yoga teacher and therapist whose great-great-great-great grandfather was a slave working on a Deep South cotton plantation until he was freed after Abolition in 1865. Allowed to choose his own name, he called himself Wisdom.

Doria, who parted from Meghan’s father Thomas Markle — an Emmy award-winning Hollywood lighting director who now lives in Mexico — when their daughter was two, had made the five-hour flight to join her daughter and Harry from her home in Los Angeles.

The prospect of a royal wedding for this handsome couple certainly throws up a hatful of questions — the first being: where?

The last time Meghan said ‘I do’ it was dusk and she and bridegroom Trevor Engelson, a promising young film producer, were on a beach in Jamaica.

Then, surrounded by friends and family holding sparklers, the couple embraced for their first dance on a lawn lit by scores of white paper lanterns, overlooking the Caribbean.

That was six years ago, when she was 30. Two years later, she and Engelson were amicably divorced without an alimony settlement.

A wedding to Harry is unlikely to take place on a beach in Jamaica — if only because the Queen, 91, and Philip, 96, no longer fly long-haul. But the days when Meghan, as a divorcee, and Prince Harry couldn’t marry in church are over. The reason the God-fearing Prince Charles married Camilla in a civil ceremony was because, as heir to the throne, he is the future head of the Church of England.

The Los Angeles-born actress (pictures) stars in the U.S. television legal drama series Suits

The Los Angeles-born actress (pictures) stars in the U.S. television legal drama series Suits

So Harry could conceivably marry in one of our great cathedrals, as royal tradition would normally dictate — such as Westminster Abbey, where William and Kate were married in April 2011.

The feeling among courtiers who have watched Harry grow up, however, is that he will want to do something different.

There is hypothetical talk of a wedding in Canada. Even if the Queen herself were not there, the idea might appeal to her in principle because Canada is part of the Commonwealth.

Harry, of course, has always been the one likely to carve a different path through royal life. Since leaving the Army he has created a role for himself in helping the disadvantaged, pointedly letting it be known that he is following in the footsteps of his mother.

In this, the pair have much in common. Long before she knew Harry, Meghan was involved in the international charity One Young World, was a UN ambassador for the empowerment of women and travelled to Rwanda to promote World Vision’s clean water campaign.

Another thing they have in common is that both are from broken homes. In Meghan’s case, as with Harry and William, she would still see both parents equally when she was growing up.

But she also possesses a quality the Prince has long hankered after — one that came to be recognised in Princess Diana after her divorce from the Prince of Wales. For Meghan’s enterprising and outgoing manner symbolises the very kind of freedom and independence Harry has sought for himself. She also has his favourite characteristic — a sunny outlook.

Such is their apparent compatibility that this romance, more than Harry’s previous relationships, has been followed keenly within the Royal Household.

A few weeks ago, when rumour was spreading of an ‘announcement’, it was whispered with great excitement, particularly below stairs, that this would be Harry and Meghan’s engagement.

It turned out to be the news that Kate is pregnant, with a baby due in April — whose arrival will push Harry a notch down the line of succession.

Harry has hardly concealed his envy of his brother’s happy family life, and made no secret of his desire to settle down and become a father. While staying with Meghan in Toronto he became very attached to her two pet rescue dogs, Bogart and Guy.

And so to last week and that teatime appointment with the Queen.

It is, of course, a further marker of the formalising of Harry’s relationship with Meghan and suggests an engagement is one step closer.

If an announcement is imminent, it may have to be made between the Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th wedding anniversary celebrations on November 20 and the arrival of William and Kate’s third child.

Meanwhile, a new parlour game has already started among Palace staff: what will they have to call Meghan? Would she be Princess Meghan, or perhaps the Duchess of Sussex, which is one of the suggested dukedoms available to the Prince?

Whatever it may be, Meghan’s forebear Wisdom would certainly be proud.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk