Every bride has a defining moment. I don’t imagine Meghan Markle – the new Duchess of Sussex – will ever forget the sight of her father-in-law lurking by a “cascading hedgerow” of spring flowers halfway along the aisle of St George’s Chapel in Windsor, ready to take her arm. If the Hollywood star had been in any doubt that she was committing her life not only to her prince, but to his whole curious family, then she wasn’t any longer. Prince Charles fulfilled his last-minute father-of-the bride duty with his customary affable diffidence, earning a heartfelt “Thank you, Pa” at the altar from his second son.
Weddings, once they get under way, have a gift for erasing the stresses of the weeks leading up to them. Royal weddings magnify that process. A week in which the wider Markle clan seemed fated to prove that any family on Earth has considerable Kardashian potential (if you train enough lenses on it) disappeared like the morning mist that was over the meadows of the Windsor Great Park. From 6am, when the first of the 120,000 visitors were wandering towards this most British of scenes – a bunting-framed castle on a hill – and discovering exactly why it was called the Long Walk, prosecco corks were already popping.
On the big screens around the town Phillip Schofield was warming up by suggesting that this was set to be “a whole day of nonconformity”. And in many ways his prediction was realised. The belief that Meghan, an American film star of mixed race and a #MeToo campaigner for women’s empowerment, could become a symbol for a new kind of inclusiveness was realised in spectacular and unexpected ways.
In some ways, of course, royal occasions depend on exclusion. Windsor was set up for that, with its concentric rings of proximity to the royal couple: chapel within castle within keep within Home Park within Great Park; a carriage ride; fleeting glimpses of hereditary celebrity. As you advanced through these different layers of access the first hint that there might be something different going on this time around was a greater diversity among the campers-out than you might have expected. When you got talking many of the black faces among the crowd proved to be American. Leslie Haynes, who had come over specially from Washington DC, where she worked for the US department of agriculture, was typical. “We came yesterday morning to start camping out,” she said. “I had to come though. We are so proud.” Why exactly? “We have our first African-American princess,” she said. “A nice bit of good news in a sea of bad news.”
Much has rightly been made in recent weeks of the bride’s extraordinary journey as the descendant of sharecroppers from Georgia to the most exclusive rank of British society. Haynes was not alone, however, in expressing disappointment that it was Prince Charles, not Meghan’s mother, Doria Ragland, who was giving her away. It seemed like a symbolic opportunity missed.
Once the service started however, it was clear they need not have been concerned. Though Meghan’s mother was her only relative present, she was backed in the ancient Quire of St George’s Chapel by American royalty: Oprah Winfrey and Serena Williams were seated directly opposite the queen. And then it quickly became clear, that despite the full pantheon of celebrities in attendance – the Beckhams, Elton, the Clooneys – there was only one genuine scene-stealing star.
Bishop Michael Curry is not only the first African-American leader of the Episcopal church in America, he is also a man who has come close to splitting the Anglican communion by insisting on blessing same-sex marriages. Here he took his opportunity to express exactly what a new kind of royal service might sound like.
The solemn tones of the dean of Windsor, Michael Conner, welcoming the suited and booted congregation, and the soaring notes of the choir of St George’s singing Thomas Tallis’s motet, If Ye Love Me, gave way to 15 barnstorming minutes of the Most Rev Curry ad-libbing on the power of love. As he got into his formidable stride, you could see on the faces of his congregation, exactly what inclusivity might look like. Curry quoted Martin Luther King and Teilhard de Chardin, and his voice rumbled with gospel power.
“Think about a time when you first fell in love!” he asked his audience, and you watched the thought flash through various professionally reserved British faces. Curry warmed to his themes, turning to his audience: “Two young people fell in love and we all showed up,” he said, capturing the delightful absurdity of marriages through the ages. As he dwelt, at some length, on the power of Gilead’s fire to transport him across the Atlantic, the long days and weeks of coverage of this event were justified by the look on the face of the Duke of Edinburgh. Zara Phillips, the royal couple and Charles and Camilla seemed to be attempting to suppress giggles.
He also provided some light relief for cynics and neutrals.
The 15-minute extemporised sermon set the tone for the day perfectly. It not only demonstrated that two traditions of performance could happily exist side by side; one enhanced the other. St George’s Chapel may boast the “most prestigious display of heraldry anywhere in the world”, the knights of the garter, and a man named David Blackadder who was, delightfully, playing the trumpet fanfare, but it could also enthusiastically embrace, it seemed, a gospel choir singing Stand By Me.
Meghan had a flower from every Commonwealth country embroidered on her veil, and you had a sense that they weren’t just there for show this time. Outside on the castle lawns, the 1,200 members of the public, nominated by nine regional lord lieutenants, clearly chosen for their “diversity”, clearly appreciated the symbolism (and also their “goodie bags” that, in the face of criticism of the lack of food being made available, included “emergency rations” of water and shortbread and chocolate).
Among those invited were 200 representatives of the charities that Harry supports, including some of the men and women who have been involved with the Invictus Games. Speaking to some of those representatives you also had the sense that the prince had received a lot of his education in the world with those groups. I spoke to Mokhachane Lerotholi from Lesotho, who enjoys the title of “herd boys coordinator”, working to alleviate poverty and HIV in rural communities for the charity Sentebale. Tholo gave Harry a tour of his lost boys in rural Lesotho when the young royal was something of a lost boy himself in 2004. The experience had a lasting effect, he believes. “You know,” he said, “as a man you come to understand that you cannot do it all on your own.”
One result of that understanding – one of which Harry’s mother would certainly have approved – seems to be the fact that pageantry doesn’t have to be scripted or solemn. The last big wedding to take place in this chapel was that between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. Charles and Camilla chose a penitent theme for their sermon: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed”. This time around, Lady Jane Fellowes, one of Princess Diana’s two older sisters, recited from the Song of Solomon – “the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in the land”.
Meghan, whose first marriage to film producer Trevor Engelson ended in 2013, was here, naturally, veiled and in white. She strode over the tomb of Henry VIII to meet Harry at the altar – a triumph of hope over experience if ever there was one – and could hardly contain her smiles. While Princess Diana spent a decade learning to love cameras, Meghan has arrived to the role fully formed. She has of course abandoned her acting career to take up this role – or perhaps cynics would say graduated from Suits to The Crown (maybe in 20 years’ time she will be watching someone play herself on this memorable afternoon).
Last year Meghan addressed a conference in Atlanta about racism in Hollywood, and noted how: “because I’m biracial I was able to get into so many more rooms because they didn’t exactly know where they could put me.” She demonstrated here how she has used that power. She went on in that speech to suggest that despite her advantage she still used to hear “no” many more times than the “blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl”. As she drove up to the chapel here in the company of her teary mother in a vintage Rolls-Royce, and as she processed around Great Park in the open landau with her new husband, you couldn’t help feeling that maybe she had changed perceptions of princesses just a little bit, but perhaps for ever.