Prince William and Kate Middleton to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip: The real story behind how 5 royal romances began

At this point, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that royal love stories are often no fairy tales: Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon had a contentious marriage that ended in the Windsor family’s first divorce. Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s union was so rocky, meanwhile, it’s to be a plot point in the latest season of The Crown, while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s happily ever ended up being far away from their kingdom.

Yet, there’s still an utter fascination about how, exactly, royal couples first met and fell in love. How does one catch—and keep—the eye of real-life Prince and Princess Charmings? Below, how the courtship of five royal couples, from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, began.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip

In July 1939, a 13-year-old Princess Elizabeth accompanied her parents on a visit to Dartmouth Britannia Royal Naval College. It’s there she met 18-year-old Philip Mountbatten, a cadet tasked with entertaining the princess and her sister, Margaret, throughout the weekend. They played games on the campus’s tennis courts and dined upon the royal yacht. The queen was instantly besotted, and from that day on, didn’t take any other suitors seriously at all. (Philip’s uncle Louis Mountbatten described the fateful meeting to Prince Charles decades later in a letter: “Mummy never seriously thought of anyone else after the Dartmouth encounter,” he wrote to his grand-nephew.)

After eight years and a war, they married at Westminster Abbey. This November, they will celebrate their 73rd wedding anniversary.

Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones

Princess Margaret met Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon, at a dinner party in 1958 with her lady-in-waiting Elizabeth Cavendish, three years after she called off her relationship with divorcé Peter Townsend. (There’s no doubt they knew of each other before that evening—photographer Armstrong-Jones started taking pictures of the royal family in 1957, and, well, Margaret was a world-famous celebrity.)

Months later, Margaret sat for a portrait with Armstrong-Jones herself. In the 2008 biography, Snowdon, author Anne de Courcy describes the session as thus: “Tony took charge of the sitting in his usual way. With the utmost politeness, he made her change her clothes, her jewelry, and her pose as if she were any other sitter, at the same time chatting away with his mixture of jokes, gossip about mutual friends, and stories of the theatrical luminaries he had photographed. Margaret, accustomed to unquestioning deference, had never met anyone like him.” 

Soon, a love affair began, and by 1960, they had announced their engagement.

Prince Charles and Princess Diana

Prince Charles first saw a 16-year-old Lady Diana in 1977 at the Spencer family estate of Althorp. He recalled “what fun she was” in their public engagement interview with the press years later.

Although, upon their first meeting, he wasn’t actually there to see her. Instead, he was busy pursuing her sister, Sarah. They would eventually break up—allegedly because Sarah spoke to the press about their relationship—but Diana stayed in his circle. In 1980, their relationship began to blossom: They went on a country weekend with friends where she watched him play polo, took a sailing trip to Cowes, and even received a rare invitation to the queen’s Scottish Highlands estate of Balmoral. Upon their engagement in 1981, Sarah Spencer told the media: “I introduced them! I’m Cupid!”

Prince William and Kate Middleton

Although Prince William and Kate Middleton ran in the same social circles for years before meeting, their love story really and truly began at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. During freshman year, they lived in the same dorm of St Salvator’s Hall and both studied art history. For a time, they were good friends—according to historian Robert Lacey’s book Battle of Brothers, Middleton even came to his rescue at a party. After noticing the prince was the recipient of unwanted attention from a fellow female student, she came over and put her arms around him. “Oh sorry, but I’ve got a girlfriend,” he lied to his pushy pursuer, before thanking Middleton for her help.

Things began to heat up in 2002, when Middleton famously walked in a charity fashion show in a see-through dress. “Kate’s hot,” William is said to have whispered to a friend. However, at the time, Middleton was still dating someone else.

In sophomore year, they lived in the same off-campus house, and that’s where the two really fell in love. They’d stay an item throughout university, and despite a short breakup in 2007, got engaged in 2010.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

In July 2016, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle went on a blind first date at the Dean Street Townhouse in London. Who set them up is still a matter of debate—some rumours suggest Ralph Lauren public relations director Violet von Westenholz, others point to designer Misha Nonoo. Whomever it was, however, was spot on: “I was beautifully surprised when I walked into that room and saw her,” Harry later admitted to the BBC. A few weeks later, they jetted off to Botswana, so they could get to know each other away from prying eyes. “It was absolutely fantastic,” said Harry. There, they fell in love—and come November 2017, their engagement became public.

This article originally appeared on Vogue.com

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