All the Ways Meghan Markle Has Forever Changed What It Means to Be a Member of the Royal Family

All the Ways Meghan Markle Has Forever Changed What It Means to Be a Member of the Royal Family
Meghan Markle came, she saw, she gave Britain's royal family a much-needed jolt—and then took Prince Harry back to her side of the pond.
Meghan Markle
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Can you believe that, at this time last year, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were still on the job?

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They had given their notice Jan. 8, 2020, issuing a shocking statement alerting the world that they'd be relinquishing their posts as senior members of The Firm and intended to become financially independent contractors—still proud to support the family business, but remotely and not every day.

Which obviously wouldn't do and negotiations with their boss resulted in them being free to pursue new opportunities, because part-time just wasn't going to cut it. They had until March 31 to get their accounts in order.

Translation: Harry and Meghan quit working for the royal family and are now living in California and producing content for Netflix and Spotify, no longer able to use their His and Her Royal Highness or Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles for business or charity but not exactly needing them to flourish, either. And last week, the cutting of ties was made even more permanent with Buckingham Palace confirming that Queen Elizabeth II's grandson and his wife will no longer have any royal patronages back in the U.K.

Which goes to show just how much can change in fewer than 12 months, let alone the almost five years since Harry first met Meghan on a fix-up in London.

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry
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It was of course obvious in the moment that this would have a lasting effect on Harry's relationship with the queen and with his father and brother, both future kings who had envisioned a larger role for him and Meghan as they continue to reshape the monarchy to better suit the 21st century.

But even if they were still chugging along as senior members of the royal family to this day and the announcement that they're expecting their second child hadn't preceded the scheduling of an unprecedented sit-down with Oprah Winfrey, the very fact of Harry and Meghan's coupling had already rocked the family's stodgy status quo from the beginning.

Meghan Markle
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And it's not as if changing addresses lessened the amount of scrutiny directed at Meghan, who's been alternately blamed for what some consider to be Harry's dereliction of duty and cheered for saving the prince (and herself) from living a stifling life of pomp and circumstance. Now, at least, she's free to speak her mind, do wildly eyebrow-raising things such as vote, and devote her energies to the causes that most matter to her.

"It's something I look forward to being a part of," Meghan said in August of the slew of hot-button issues roiling her home country, from protests and civil unrest over racial inequality and economic despair to the looming 2020 presidential election. "And being part of using my voice in a way that I haven't been able to of late. So, yeah, it's good to be home."

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Ultimately, Harry and Meghan's decision to socially distance themselves from the royal family for reasons that had nothing to do with preventing COVID-19 from spreading is not even the most world-rattling scandal to plague the House of Windsor, either this century or last. No lines of succession have been altered, no connections forever broken. Harry and Prince William reportedly didn't speak for a couple of months after the terms of the move quickly dubbed "Megxit" were hammered out, but they've been in communication more regularly lately.

"There were phone and video calls over the Christmas and New Year holiday and the Sussexes sent presents to the Cambridges and vice versa," royal expert Katie Nicholl told Entertainment Tonight last month. "It was an opportunity in an otherwise very busy and chaotic year for both of the families to come together and connect, albeit virtually."

Meghan Markle, Prince Harry, Spotify Stream On 
YouTube
But there's no question that the family isn't the same as it was in 2018, when Meghan married into it—or 2016, when Harry first fell in love with her, months before anyone even knew he had a girlfriend.

There are at least two sides to every story (and far more than that to this one), whether you believe the least flattering dispatches or the more glowing takes on how Meghan came, saw, didn't like what she saw and skedaddled. More likely you sense, correctly, that the truth is a complicated melding of all the sides.

But there are no two ways about the fact that the course of the royal family has been forever altered by the addition of Meghan to its tree:

Prince Harry, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton
Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool / Getty Images
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Prince Harry generally made for a happy trio with his big brother, Prince William, and sister-in-law Kate Middleton, but Harry had been open about wanting to start a family of his own. He had never wanted for girlfriends, but finding The One was proving to be a tall order.

"I don't think you can force these things," Harry told Sky News during a tour of New Zealand in May 2015, about a week after his niece Princess Charlotte was born back in Britain, when asked whether he was ready to settle down. "It'll happen when it's going to happen. Of course I'd love to have kids right now, but there's a process that one has to go through...Tours like this is great fun, hopefully I'm doing alright by myself. It would be great to have someone next to me, sort of to share the pressure. But you know, the time will come and whatever happens, happens, I guess."

ESC: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle
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Happy, Hasty Harry
A year later, he found someone to share the pressure with!

He and Meghan met for a drink in London, set up by mutual friend Violet von Westenholz, and it was practically love at first sight—or at least second sight, Harry feeling as early as date two the very next evening that "they would be together," a friend told Finding Freedom authors Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand. "She was ticking every box fast."

Harry finding love sent a warm wave of happiness straight to the top of the royal food chain, Queen Elizabeth II always having had a special place in her heart for her rambunctious red-haired grandson.

However, also according to the book, William, who dated—and, at times, dangled—Kate for years before marrying her in 2011, urged his brother to really think it through, worried he was moving too fast. And that didn't sit well with Harry at all.

"Harry could see through William's words," a friend told the authors. "He was being a snob."

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle
Danny Lawson/PA Wire
A Secret Engagement
In general, royals wait a beat before sharing engagement news with the world, the actual proposal always taking place somewhere private (after the queen has been alerted and her approval acquired) before the announcement goes out. In this day and age, with so many Internet sleuths on the case, you'd think that Meghan would have set off major alarms by wearing a white button-down called the "Husband Shirt" from her designer friend Misha Nonoo's collection on a date with Harry to the Invictus Games in September 2017, more than two months before they revealed their betrothal.

But no. Meghan's smart white shirt and somehow-still-elegant ripped skinny jeans flew under the radar.

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Meghan Markle, Doria Ragland
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Uncharted Territory
The young royals are an increasingly progressive bunch, and their charity work in their own country and others reflects that. But Britain's royal family hadn't had much cause for discussions about race as it pertains to their own family. So it was the beginning of an eye-opening new era when Harry was compelled to entreat the public in November 2016 to respect more than his not-so-new-by-then girlfriend's privacy.

Harry was aware that there will always be fascination with his personal life, read a statement released on his behalf by the palace, "But the past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public—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."

And so began a struggle with the U.K. press and many of its citizens, famous and not, that continues to this day over whether there's a racial component to the way the media treated (and continues to treat) Meghan, the daughter of a white father and Black mother. Most people see it, that headlines such as the Daily Mail's "Harry's girl is (almost) straight outta Compton" from 2016 are inexcusable. But of course those who have endlessly criticized her (she spent too much money on this, she disrespected Kate, she disrespected the queen, how dare she take a 48-hour trip and leave a 5-month-old baby with only his father and staff to look after him?!) insist that nothing has anything to do with race.

Prince William, Prince Harry, Prince Charles, Meghan Markle, Royal Wedding, Chapel
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