WEDDING BELLS

Meghan Markle ‘Accepted’ by Royal Family

With Meghan embraced and beloved by a new, calmer, more settled Harry, the path is clearing for the next royal wedding.

Prince Harry’s girlfriend Meghan Markle is getting used to life in Kensington Palace, as speculation continues to swirl that she and Harry will announce an engagement later this year, and the Suits actress has been warmly welcomed into the royal fold, according to a new report.

Despite the fact that Markle has reportedly been excluded from Pippa Middleton’s wedding, a source tells the new issue of Us Weekly that at KP “Harry has made it clear she’s to be treated like everyone else who lives there.”

“She’s very much been accepted into the family,” says the insider. “They are so happy to see Harry happy.”

Markle, 35, has been dating Harry, 32, for close on a year now, and most observers expect Harry to ask for her hand in marriage later this year.

Us Weekly reports that Markle has been encouraged to seek advice from Harry’s private secretary, Edward Lane Fox, and communications secretary, Jason Knauf: “There have been many times where Meghan’s been unsure of protocol,” says the magazine’s source, “and having access to Harry’s aides has been a godsend.”

Harry has been widely observed by his friends and colleagues to be a calmer, happier human being in recent years, and while many assumed that this was due to Markle’s influence, Harry himself this week revealed that he has only recently come to terms with his mother Princess Diana’s death, which took place 20 years ago this year.

Harry himself spoke in the interview about how, having not talked about his mother’s death for many years, he then endured “two years of chaos,” including panic and rage attacks, before finally learning to talk about the trauma.

“Because of this process,” he said, “I’ve now been able to take my work seriously, been able to take my private life seriously as well.”

Harry’s party-boy antics (such as the infamous 2012 Las Vegas game of strip billiards) now seem to be a thing of the past, as he focuses on the Invictus Games, a Paralympic-style event for wounded servicemen, and raising the profile of mental-health treatment through his Heads Together charity.

Kate praised Harry’s intervention into the conversation around mental health on Wednesday, telling a primary-school headmaster during an engagement, “We all felt if there was a campaign to get everyone talking and having these conversations, we’ve got to do the same, you know—so [Harry] has been brilliant.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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